Aphids - how much of a problem are they?

Posts

• B3 Posts: 27,505

  May 2023

  Try to encourage blue tits and the like into your garden. They will Hoover up the aphids. Spraying with water is temporary as the adults will just fly back and get on with procreation.

  In London. Keen but lazy.

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• Fairygirl Posts: 55,117

  May 2023

  Garden balance doesn't magically happen. It takes time.
  A bare plot for example, in among other bare plots, can take years to get a good balance. If there's reasonable wildlife in the area, it's quicker. Blue tits for example, will eat tons of them, especially at this time of year, or earlier, when feeding their young. 
  Some plants are more susceptible too, so that's where deciding on what to grow becomes important. 
  I have very few aphids. Nothing to do with ladybirds, but by growing plants that suit my conditions, and many of those aren't inclined to produce the sort of growth that attracts them anyway. Any that do get eaten by those blue tits, or get wiped off, but usually they aren't bad enough to warrant that. 

  It's a place where beautiful isn't enough of a word....
  
  
  
  I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...

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• BouncingBack Posts: 142

  May 2023

  The problem with birds here is that because it's a new build estate and very few people have planted gardens (the majority have just extended patios and/or put plastic grass down - including all of our direct neighbours), and then in addition outside the front of the house are huge fields, trees and hedgerows, the only birds who I've managed to attract with feeders are starlings, a few blackbirds and then a crow who worked out how to remove said feeders! I saw one blue tit with their baby which was immediately chased off by starlings.
  
  So I will struggle a lot to even get smaller birds to notice the feeders, much less have a chance of getting a look in. They have a much safer habitat out the front and a house further up the street has hung feeders from the small wild bushes opposite their house, on the edge of the field, where small birds can feed safely next to lots of hiding places for when the many surrounding cats and larger birds turn up.

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• Astraeus Posts: 336

  May 2023

  I likewise wrote off the possibility of having enough bird traffic in our garden to help with pest control. But build it and they will come.
  
  I think it's said that tits, sparrows etc. will range a couple of miles. So ignore your near-neighbours' set ups - as long as there's something within a couple of miles, it's all good. We have a neighbourhood of cats and back on to open farmland, so not ideal for small birds. And, like you, several neighbours had massive feeding stations so they weren't in need of more nuts and seeds...
  
  So I decided to offer something different. A pond, berry-bearing plants and trees (crab apple and pyracantha), a vigorous plant that I knew would attract aphids aplenty (honeysuckle) and two blue tit houses, one on a north facing and one on an east facing wall to avoid prevailing winds. We had both boxes used in year one, one box used in year two and that same box in use currently for year three. The tits weren't really interested in my feeders, tending to go three doors down for that, but being 'home' meant they'd fly straight past my amelanchier and crab apple, constantly diving in to both to pick off aphids.
  
  Our first year with the crab apple was a right off - constantly spraying garlic and unpicking curled up leaves - but this year it's fantastic. There are still aphids, and still ants farming them, but we've had a healthy blue tit brood in there last year and no real leaf damage this year...so far.

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• nick615 Posts: 1,487

  May 2023

  BouncingBack  Some advocate washing up liquid for spraying on aphids, but I use the cooled liquid from boiled rhubarb leaves, applied from a cast off household spray.  Best keep a container of spare liquid to a) continue when the rhubarb has died back or b) to have in readiness for next year when Aphids precede the rhubarb.  Their favourite food in my experience is broad beans.
  

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• BouncingBack Posts: 142

  May 2023

  I can't seem to blast them off effectively with the hose (which can be adjusted to be high pressure) or with my trigger spray bottle which shoots very thin and powerful water/water and washing up liquid. The ones that do get shot away end up everywhere and presumably the adults just go straight back. I've tried tapping or wiping them into a bowl of soapy water but they go all over the place, and the only effective method seems to be physically wiping every single leaf which is a monumental task. 
  
  Our garden is very small, and is/was indeed a bare plot among bare plots. Additionally, the growing conditions are not great and it's all very wet, and lots of it is always in shade. I'm limited with what I can plant, many of my other questions on here are asking what I can even get to survive here! Trial and error is expensive. I don't have a great deal of choice around what we can do with the garden unfortunately. 

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• Waterbut Posts: 344

  May 2023

  Washing up liquid solution does the trick but read up carefully on the concentration. Lost all the leaves on my rose bush due to using too strong a solution. Glad it bounced back next year.

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