|
Chris Fedderson — MacroFine Musings Kathy Lawler — Guest Blogger ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ While watering our flowers, specifically our Hellebores, I noticed that some of the leaves were getting wrinkled, curled, and yellow. Since we don’t use pesticides in the garden area, we do expect that we will, from time to time, have plants that have been munched on, or leaves that aren’t doing well. But this damage looked like it was more than a random act of a few bad leaves. Upon closer look, I found Aphids on our plant. Ugh. I also found aphids on our Habanero Peppers growing on the second floor deck. These were easy to wash off with mild household detergent and water — the plants were small and are in a small pot. I wasn’t sure what to do with the Hellebores and other yard plants though, since they are much larger and in the ground, so I went in search of a solution . . .  TaDaaa! Our Solution! Turns out the Nursery near our house carries containers of Ladybugs (and Praying Mantids) to help one in combating aphids and mealy bugs and other soft-bodied insects! We thought this would be a great solution and Chris would also be able to shoot a few new images of one of his favorite subjects. Chris took this beautiful image when several of our new ladybugs on landed one of our annuals, an Osteospermum, called Blue-Eyed Beauty. As you can see from the image the flowers are yellow, white, and purple with a blue eye in the center. The contrast with the flower and the color of the ladybugs is a spectacular color-combination to photograph; we touched on this in our blog post, Color Me Confused.  Look Ma! No Aphids! But back to our aphid issue! There are a variety of natural solutions you can try when combating Aphids. You will be happy to know that the addition of Ladybugs did the trick in our garden. The Ladybugs won the SmackDown and our garden is back in balance. Thank You for visiting, — Kathy P.s. How do you get rid of garden pests? Share your organic methods with us and our readers.
4 Comments
 Aliens Chris Fedderson — MacroFine Musings
Kathy Lawler — Guest Blogger ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Sounds like something warm and fuzzy… right? Sundews. Conjures up a happy day with sunshine and light with the promise of morning dew. Not so much! Sundews are part of a family of carnivorous plants and there are over 194 species of them. These plants attract insects to their dewy stems. Sundews are perennial, and we have been growing both Sundews and Venus Flytraps indoors for the last two years. We originally bought our Sundews to photograph and the size of this red part in photo is about only a 1/4 of an inch! Then we discovered another thing they were really great for… Turns out that these plants have been our best defense in trying to combat those natty little files that live in the soil around your indoor plants. We had tried several other solutions, including placing sand around the top of the pot but nothing seems to work as well as having a few Sundews in the room with the plants. Needless to say our problem was solved, and in a way that didn’t involve any chemicals or sprays. Sundews have tentacles that are covered with a sticky secretion that is sweet to attract insects and is gooey to ensnare them. Small insects are attracted to the secretions and upon touching them, become stuck to the plant and are not able to escape. The enzymes in the secretions dissolve the insects. Gross right? Your kids and grandkids will love these! We've found Sundews and Venus flytraps these days everywhere – at our local nursery, hardware store, and even in the gift shop of a local science museum. There are some things you need to do to grow these in your home. Ours are sitting in a tray of water to keep the plants moist and you should never let them dry out. We also use distilled water to eliminate the excess minerals in water. We also have them in a very sunny location with 6 or more hours of light per day. And we keep them happy by supplying the bugs! Thank you for visiting! Kathy P.s. Have you used any natural method to combat pests? Have you ever grown carnivorous plants? Share your stories with us; let's compare notes. |
Categories
All
About Chris
I am a Virginia-based photographer and gather my images while hiking in parks and natural areas here at home and in the locations I travel to. I also love to visit arboretums and botanic gardens to find unusual and exotic subjects. Archives
March 2017
|
RSS Feed