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Pests. GRRRRRRR !
Frannerz
Posts: 72
Just as the garden began to show some life. Things soon looked worse for wear and upon inspection one of my evergreen creeper type plants was smothered in aphids. Nothing else seemed to have them so I removed the offending plant as infestation was soooo bad. A week later I was checking over my acer tree and quickly realised it was smothered in black fly. Big fat horrible Black aphid things. The poor tree had only just started opening up is leaves fully. And the rest of the garden the following week ! All my potted plants had aphids, lots o of them. And 2 shrubs had white fly everywhere. I don't normally use pesticides but this time I did. I felt I had no choice as there were so many bugs and right at the beginning of spring too. I feel a bit of a failure really but I have saved my beautiful acer and my other plants so they will pay me back later in the season. Has anyone else had big trouble this spring ?? And also this is kind of a warning aswell. As Mr Titchmarsh's book "how to garden" advised me if you have bug trouble so will others. Well anyone near me, I live in Battle, East Sussex, I've had them so be on the look out.
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A Battle ground indeed.
Not noticed anything unusual. Maybe my army of friendly insects and birds has been looking after my interests
In the sticks near Peterborough
I've had no sign of anything unusual either - but I do have a blue-tit family using my garden as their larder, as well as the robins, chaffinches, long tailed tits, great tits, greenfinches, wrens, goldfinches, dunnocks etc etc etc - if it moves they nab it at the moment
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
It works till the insecti/pesticides get used pansy
In the sticks near Peterborough
At home I rarely see any birds in my garden and I really mean in 5 years I've seen birds land in the garden, maybe 6 or seven times.
You see, I had a Rottweiler until recently and also I have 3 cats. 1 of which is an expert bird catcher. So it would be irresponsible of me to encourage any birds into my garden, just in case.
Proof if ever it was needed - birds won't venture in to gardens if they feel threatened. Like the others have said - nature balances it all out if it gets the chance. I recently watched the blue tits hoovering up the greenfly on the emerging buds and flowers on my apple tree, and the sparrows eaten all the whitefly on a pot of strawberries - leaving it fresh and clean. The new clematis buds are all pristine - greenfly removed by the birds. My ongoing battle to keep the endless parade of residents' felines out of my garden is starting to pay off.
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
My garden is cat central station and I get around six different moggies strolling thru all the time. I also have my own cat, and she is pure white, exempt for her tabby tail. However because of her colour she is useless at trying to hide from the birds and they just sit on the fence and laugh at her when she tries to make out she is the Big White Hunter! She has never (fortunately) managed to catch a bird in her life, as far as I am aware. My previous cat was a tabby all over but I made her wear a huge bell around her neck which chinked at the slightest movement. She never knowingly caught anything either. I just wished other cat owners did the same with their cats. It's easy and not expensive and helps save the wildlife.
If my cat would keep any type of collar on, she would be wearing two! I do have a bird feeder in my garden, one that my cat cannot jump up at. She refers four legged furry creatures (thanks to the neglected ex-allotments at the back of my house) I try and keep her in at "birdy breakfast time" and generally try and be as responsbile a cat owner as I can possibly be.
Sadly, the same can't be said of owners of cats nearby
Just because I can't make her wear a collar doesn't mean that I'm anti-wildlife. Far from it 
hi frannerz i'm just down the road from you in pevensey bay and yesterday i saw the fattest green fly i've ever seen on my new climbing rose, i wiped them off but i could see them individually they were so big without my glasses on, i have notised loads of ants this year and woodlice, my apple tree has ants and think they were feeding off of the sap from greenfly so i have sprayed it with washing up liquid water and chilli which seemed to get rid of the greenfly but the ants are back, must be our really mild winter and spring i think. you could buty in some ladybirds larvae which eat the greenfly etc, just make sure you don't have ants aswell as they will fend off the ladybirds to protect their greenfly