Flies Killing Tree!!

[Alex]

We have a flowering blossom tree in our garden which is rapidly dying (I think) due to some sort of tiny fly takng hold on it. They only seem to be attached to the outer reaches of each branch and are manifesting themselves onto the bottom of the leaves. The leaves then gradually turn black hence me thinking the tree's dying!!!

Can anyone help with some sort of antidote to this?

A & G

[SimonCole]

A good insecticide should do the job. Or if the trees a bit big, load your water pistol with diluted washing up liquid and fire! My guess is that they are aphids.

[SueA]

Hi Alex, like Simon I think they're probably black fly aphids, you get them a lot on cherry & other blossom trees, we get them on our ornamental cherry. They shouldn't cause any real harm to the tree & it probably isn't dying as you think, just looking a bit sorry for itself. If you don't want to use chemicals you could just try & spray them off with water or an organic bug spray (careful though, these can kill beneficial insects too) or just cut off the worst affected leaves. Aphids can sometimes introduce disease into plants but generally trees recover. Our cherry tree suffers with them on & off but is still going strong.