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Last year I was walking on the beach here in L.A. and I saw a gal wearing this Aphids Suck tee. I remember thinking: if there isn’t a t-shirt for everything now! Man-o-man. Poor aphids.
Cut to last month and my rose bushes were suddenly coated with the little buggers, just as the new growth was starting to come in! What to do?
Spray or pray?
My conscience said pray they’d go elsewhere and infest someone else’s bushes; but the part of me that had been working so arduously all winter for healthy roses said spray ‘em!
So I went to the nursery and picked up not a chemical spray, but a mini-primer on the aphid, instead.
Curious fact #1: You can hose the suckers off with water! That’s right: no poison necessary—just a spray nozzle on your hose.
Even more curious fact #2: Another way to get rid of them is by attracting ladybugs to your infected plant. Each ladybug is capable of consuming up to 50 to 60 aphids per day! In terms of weight/size proportions, that would be like you eating 50 to 60 whole trout every day. Yeah, that’s a lot of fish.
Even WAY more curious fact #3: Aphids are born pregnant! Yup, they are what’s known as parthenogenic (from the Greek words meaning virgin and creation), meaning they don’t need a male to become impregnated. Think of the unborn offspring as organs, growing inside the aphid as she grows inside her mother. Pretty cool, eh?
So if you see someone wearing one of those Aphids Suck tees, consider accosting the owner and scribbling a DON’T in there, ‘cause I can think of a million things that suck a whole lot more than the very cool little, often-harmless aphid.
Comments (8)
Comment
Born Pregnant, eh? Seems like poisoned grain would be a threat to their survival as well…
posted by Witty Nickname on 3-20-2008 at 8:29 am
Good thing you didn’t buy poison - any poison you buy to kill the aphids would also kill any benefcials like ladybugs…which throws the whole cycle off whack, and you end up with more aphids after awhile…
another option would be to mix a concoction of soap and water in a spray bottle and spray them…
From a quick Google search of ‘aphids and soapy water’:
Mildly soapy water is more effective at killing aphids because it kills those that remain attached to the host. However, it can leave a residue if not rinsed off later and can damage sensitive new growth or roots if too much soap is used. Soapy water is useful for species such as roses that can be damaged by water on the foliage. Soapy water rinsing is not necessary as frequently as rinsing with plain water.
posted by donner on 3-20-2008 at 9:32 am
Did you know that ants and ladybugs are mortal enemies? Ants keep aphids as milk cows, and ladybugs are rustlers!
We used to have hellish problems with aphid goo on our cars thanks to a stupid tree plan in our condo complex, but an entomologist ships in ladybugs now, and the kids spread ‘em on the trees. How’s that for a cool childhood memory?
posted by Marion on 3-20-2008 at 10:19 am
It’s quite amazing how quickly ladybugs will clear a tree of aphids. We had a Hawthorne tree that was dripping due to aphids, and a simple purchase of a bag of ladybugs from the garden store (1500?) cleared them up. One of the suggestions before putting them in the tree was to spray the ladybugs with sugar water, which causes their wings to get sticky and they can’t fly off. By the time they can fly again they’ve adopted the tree as a temporary home and they feast on the aphids!
posted by Dan on 3-20-2008 at 11:35 am
You realize the T-shirt was a play on words, too, right? Aphids do suck; it’s how they feed off your plants lol.
posted by Michelle on 3-20-2008 at 12:10 pm
I’m thinking the shirt in part refers to the fact that aphids subsist on sweet, sweet plant juices, which they obtain by sucking.
So by scribbling in “don’t”, you may be enforcing your affection for aphids, but an entomologist may beg to differ…
posted by Ohne Hosen on 3-20-2008 at 12:31 pm
And now I look like a tool since Michelle beat me to posting. :-)
That’s what I get for carefully crafting a comment between spurts of productivity at work…
posted by Ohne Hosen on 3-20-2008 at 12:34 pm
There’s only one caveat about simply washing them away with water–those little buggers can climb right back up onto the plant. The best solutions to an aphid problem are mild soapy water, followed by introducing beneficial insects like ladybugs or lacewing larvae. Be quick about it, though. Those little beauties can increase in number exponentially.
posted by Harry on 3-20-2008 at 3:36 pm