| Protection is the name of the garden game in
spring. Everything is growing fast and the insects multiplying rapidly as the weather
warms and fungal diseases spread with the humidity. No time to rest. Thank God for longer
days. The Pyrethrum plant is widely touted as a
living herb in the garden to repel soft-bodied insects, such as Aphids, Thrips and
Whitefly. Its volatile vapours are particularly pungent when grown hard in full sun. Why
not plant one in a 25cm (10 inch) terra cotta pot and then move it from the sunny areas to
the trouble spots in your garden?
There is also a dwarf variety of the old fashioned
"Wormwood" that was my Grandfather's cure-all in the garden. Apparently it kept
fleas at bay as well as all the aphids and caterpillars in the vegie patch. It did get a
bit large though, which is why the dwarf form I saw at Richardson's McLaren Vale Nursery
is so appealing and now growing in my garden! Less than a metre in diameter and a handsome
grey ball.. good one!
The Aphids are ravishing the Rose buds at present and must
be controlled or all the first Rose blooms will be distorted and spoilt. Wash them off
with water, spray with Pyrethrum based sprays or squash them.
White Cabbage Moths are on the wing looking for hosts to
lay their eggs so their hungry green caterpillars can defoliate your garden. Yellow sticky
baits called Trappits™ put pay to their plans or spray Dipel™, that's a
bacterium that rots the stomach of the caterpillar and causes their death. Safe on the
rest of the food chain too.
Isn't is perverse that caterpillars never seem to eat the
Soursobs and the Stinging Nettles are any of the weeds for that matter? And why are the
Cabbage Moths so conspicuous to the gardener as they go about the lethal business, laying
their eggs all over my garden? Eggs that take 10 days to produce destructive caterpillars
that wreck a garden. Pyrthrum and Wormwood.. you'd better work! |
