So checked the lupin today on close inspection the plant is riddled with aphids. If I cut the plant right down to the base would it cause issues for next year? Think i need a quick solution with these number
Give those a good hosing down … you may need to repeat it a few times … those are nice healthy leaves … it would be a shame to cut them off … they’re photosynthesising and producing energy which is building up the crown for next year.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Never been able to grow lupins. Grew them from seed,no problems,slugs, bought big plants,still got scoffed, unfortunately will have to do without them. Course someone is only going to be able to boil rhubarb leaves of they grow it. With us it's the black aphids on everything this year The dahlias are dreadful
Black aphids have ruined my large honeysuckle 3 years running. I had dozens of ladybird larvae on it to no avail. They killed the leaves too. Damn things.
Nanny Beach There's no other use for rhubarb leaves, so anyone who does grow it will be only too glad to give you theirs. Glance over a few garden fences?
I worry about poisons, whether they be commercially produced or homemade … what happens to the ladybird larvae and lacewing when they eat aphids that have ingested the rhubarb spray?
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Dove - I have to admit I don't know the answer, but I have a sort of blind faith that Nature tells its various life forms what is good to eat etc.? Hence, what tells birds to eat peanuts that aren't 'native'. As the only constituents to my spray are the natural leaves and water, the ladybirds will steer clear of it as they presumably do with the rhubarb itself? We need a scientist.
But once the aphids have ingested the oxalic acid which has been sprayed onto the surface of the leaf they’re eating … then the poison is inside them. Along comes a ladybird larva, programmed ‘by nature’ to eat aphids … so it eats the aphid containing the toxin.
Just as an owl who eats a poisoned rat will ingest the poison along with the rat, and the hedgehogs and songthrushes that eat the slugs killed by metaldehyde pellets also eat the poison 😢
Nature isn’t ‘magic’ … it doesn’t prevent creatures from eating stuff we’ve altered … if that was the case the aphids wouldn’t eat the plants you’ve sprayed … nature doesn’t choose between the creatures you want or don’t want in your garden.
No poisons for me thank you … home made or manufactured by big companies … they all gave unintended consequences. ☠️
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
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Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
The dahlias are dreadful
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Nature isn’t ‘magic’ … it doesn’t prevent creatures from eating stuff we’ve altered … if that was the case the aphids wouldn’t eat the plants you’ve sprayed … nature doesn’t choose between the creatures you want or don’t want in your garden.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.