Greenfly help!

[ChishandFips33]

Whilst doing a bit of titivating yesterday I noticed lots of tiny green/clear bugs on my Hebe and Marguerite

I'm assuming greenfly and in panic chopped of the bits that had the most clusters on but want to treat without chemical if possible

Does soapy water work without damaging the plants...any tips, hints and ideas gratefully appreciated

Yep, a few drops of WUL in water in a hand sprayer should do the trick.

As Nan says, but you need to keep on it. Did you know that during the summer, most greenfly are female, and give birth to live daughters that already have granddaughters inside them? (hope that makes sense!)

From the amount already on I can believe it!

Thanks...I'll get squirting when it stops raining

What is WUL please.

Washing up liquid.
However what works better is to find some ladybirds and they will eat them all for you.

You can buy ladybird larvae off the Internet. They have the advantage of not flying away.

I'd love an answer to this too. Sprayed all my roses with water and WUL last week and they're already covered in greenflies again

I've not sprayed yet as chopping of the infested parts seems to have done the trick

Is this year a bad year? - I've not noticed them before

ApplesTheHare
You have to keep up when using WUL, as it won't be 100% effective. If one greenfly survives, they can easily replace the ones you kill in a week. I would look to spray every 3 or 4 days to control a bad infestation.
Not sure if it's a particularly bad year, but I've yet to see a ladybird so far?

I've seen a ladybird, but it looked like a Harlequin one. Are they more common now?

Thanks for the tip Ifailed

The WUL treatment does work and effectively suffocates the aphids. It doesn't take long for a new infestation to arrive so just keep up with the spraying.

I use the biological controls from sites like The Green Gardener and they are fantastic but at a price. Lacewing larvae are absolute beasts and eat nearly every pest you can think of. They have also developed special measures to avoid the ants who want to farm the aphids. Fascinating stuff for a horticulturalist but probably boring for normal people.

I'll get my coat.

Steve

IamSpartacusTheGardener

It is interesting! I have blackfly on my runner beans, and they are being farmed by ants - it's fascinating to watch, why, for example, do they choose which plants to use and ignore others (I'm talking about beans in a double row)

I failed,

The ants follow the aphids. Why the aphids choose the plants they do is likely to be down to prior infestations. In the case of black bean aphid they over-winter in litter left on the ground and also on weeds and if they can get it on Euonymus europaeus. When they start looking for hosts they don't usually have to go too far!

Another reason to keep weeds down and clear dead leaves and litter from your vegetables.

If you are interested in this subject have a look on you tube at Lacewing Lions. Amazing stuff.

Steve

What I mean is I have two rows of 6 plants (so 12 in all). Two of them are covered in blackfly, though the plants seem to be doing OK, growing, forming flowers etc. The other 10 are pretty well fly free, yet they are only 20 cm apart, and leaves are now touching other plants?

Ah, I see. The females over-winter as eggs and in a March they hatch and fly to host plants where they start producing off-spring without the need for male company!. My guess is that you were visited by two females.

Steve