In the Chilterns where my daughter lives, they have lots of Red Kite. Loved by many but they seem to scare away all the small birds that might otherwise do a good job of insect eating.
Looking at your pics: Hosing your pond plant leaves and running your hand up the affected stems, would remove 90% of the blackfly immediately. A bit messy, but cleans up easily. Use gloves if you are sensitive.
location: Surrey Hills, England, ex-woodland acidic sand. "Have nothing in your garden that you don't know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful."
Thanks bede - unfortunately I can't reach a lot of the pond plants as the pond is quite large and again it's not isolated to a few plants, 90% of all the plants in my garden are like this so it would involve a huge amount of time all summer and autumn to remove them manually (or spray them all). The only things I can think of would be to try and get them earlier in the year (I started from May this year - is that too late?) - and give up growing all the plants they're attracted to. For example, one of the only plants they don't touch is my Verbena, so perhaps I need to do a bit of research on what they don't like! It's such a downer, I wish I could work out why they're SO attracted to my garden!
Same here Fire! I suppose in fairness it didn't help that I pretty much hid from my garden for a month because it was unbearably hot this summer. I really hope next year is a bit easier temperature-wise. Thanks everyone for your helpful comments, really appreciate it as I know it's a long standing problem for many!
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Looking at your pics:
Hosing your pond plant leaves and running your hand up the affected stems, would remove 90% of the blackfly immediately. A bit messy, but cleans up easily. Use gloves if you are sensitive.
"Have nothing in your garden that you don't know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful."