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- All this cool mild weather, has most plants growing pretty softly at
present, so they will fall victim to all sorts of insect sap suckers and
chewing caterpillars over the next few weeks.
- Remedies can be from the full-blown Carbaryl spray for the caterpillars to
spraying a Bacillus that dries their stomachs up, sold as Dipel ® HG. You
could of course spend some time just squashing the offending caterpillars
and their egg-laying white moths too if you are quick enough.
- Now as for the whiteflies, they are not so easily caught by hand, but
sticky yellow traps work well and they catch the white moths too. If you
have trouble locating these at your local gardening outlet, I have them on
this website for sale at A$9.50 posted anywhere in Australia-New Zealand.
They work and they are quite waterproof. This offer only until 30th
January 2002.
- If you planted bedding plants of flowering annuals recently you may notice
they have yellowed a little with the cooler weather. That could be caused by
mulch that is a bit fresh and it depletes the available soil nitrogen for a
short while or it can be that the cold soil has slowed the break down of
available nitrogen that you added in the form of blood and bone.
- Remedy for both is to apply a water-soluble fertilizer (the likes of
Aquasol®, Thrive®, Cultisol® etc.) that is instantly available to your
plants. Of course if the yellow leaves carry green veins that signals a lack
of iron in the soil caused by alkaline conditions that locks up the
available iron and you then need to add iron chelates.
- If your grape vine canopy has grown too densely over the past few weeks
you will need to thin them a bit or else they become primate targets for
powdery mildew and it ruins your fruit set. They will weep a bit, but that’s
not terminal.
- There’s a fine line we walk at present between leaving the spring annual
flowers in to get that last hurrah and pulling them out to make way for the
summer display.
- I’d recommend you opt for gradual replacement with drifts over the next
few weeks, that way there is some colour in the interim, before you petunias
and marigolds get established and start blooming.
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