Grow Your Own Magazine

We have a beautiful honeysuckle that was ruined last year by blackfly. I had hoped that all our birds would feed on them, but there were just too many - blackfly, not birds!

What could I do this year to ensure it doesn't spoil it again? I would welcome both organic and chemical suggestions!

There are loads of chemicals available, just check your local supermarket or garden centre. Diluted washing up liquid sprayed on is quite effective, or you could try squishing them with your fingers (I wear rubber gloves to do this as I'm a tad squeamish)

Gardening queries -28 - covering a range of topics of interest to the 50 plus age group.
The following advice was taken from above link.

Q: Aphids galore!

We have a honeysuckle that is constantly covered in

blackfly, despite
numerous sprays with a pesticide they still return

and ruin the flowers. I
have also tried to grow sweet peas this year and they

are covered in
greenfly and my dahlias have blackfly. Can you

suggest something to combat
all these, as the bugs do not inspire me to continue

gardening!





A: This is exactly how my garden was getting to

be: the more insecticides I
sprayed on, the greater the aphid population became.

Then I took heed of Alan Titchmarsh`s advice on a

Gardener`s World programme
and stopped ALL spraying. Within three years all

aphid infestation had
disappeared..

His reasoning was that the sprays not only killed the

bad guys, they killed
the good guys too, the ones that ate the aphids! Also

he thought that the
aphids became immune to the sprays, much the same as

humans become immune to
antibiotics...

Whatever, it worked for me and if you can suffer for

a couple of years while
the garden regains a natural balance you have nothing

to lose, because the
sprays aren`t working anyway.. If you have a

particularly heavy infestation
anywhere, you will find that a fast jet of water from

the hosepipe will
knock them off.


I have many letters from gardeners with the same

problem as you and some
of them have replied that the recommended measures

did work

Personally I'd rub them off, my mum always has this problem with her honeysuckle, but as she does not grow any crops she's more than happy to nuke them with a commercial spray which seems to do the trick.