This is not the first time I have come across this problem on my blackfoot daisies. Today I noticed that this plant in the sunken garden had died. I pulled it out and saw these insects on the root. I am almost positive that they are root aphids. Last year I saw the problem in the front gravel garden; decline of the plant and a few ants around the base of the plant. They were busy farming the aphids for honeydew. It has been a bad year for my blackfoot daisies and I think I now know why. The only thing I can think to do is to drench the base of the plant with spinosad and see if that gets rid of them. Fingers crossed.
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
SUDDEN DECLINE
This is not the first time I have come across this problem on my blackfoot daisies. Today I noticed that this plant in the sunken garden had died. I pulled it out and saw these insects on the root. I am almost positive that they are root aphids. Last year I saw the problem in the front gravel garden; decline of the plant and a few ants around the base of the plant. They were busy farming the aphids for honeydew. It has been a bad year for my blackfoot daisies and I think I now know why. The only thing I can think to do is to drench the base of the plant with spinosad and see if that gets rid of them. Fingers crossed.
Ewwww -- they are nasty looking. I'm sorry for your loss -- hope it doesn't spread to others or anyone else. They are among my favorites.
ReplyDeleteI've never seen those before, and I hope I never do!
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing this! As someone who is new to gardening..and finding Central Texas gardening quite confusing...it's nice to see that even those with a green thumb can have plants that meet an untimely demise. It's encouraging to me to see that some things will work and others will not and that's just the way it goes sometimes.
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