Today I went to a Royal Horticultural Society garden centre and many of their David Austin roses for sale were infested with greenfly and some had whitefly. I've never seen that at an RHS centre before. However, I wasn't surprised as just over a week ago I saw greenfly by the thousands on my roses, particularly on my Iceberg climber and Iceberg shrub. I sprayed every rose I had with the systemic insecticide 'RoseClear' which I buy in a bottle and add to water. I also sprayed my roses with the RoseClear for mildew, rust, blackspot, influenza, arthritis, whatever they can get! It's the year of the aphid and I believe it could be the year of everything else too. I found rust spores on my Polka raspberry canes. I don't have a fungicide at the moment for fruit crops and so I picked off all the leaves I could, and cut out a cane from last year, sacrificing whatever fruit might have developed from the flowers. It really, seriously, hacks me off! Click on the images for a close up!
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| Just look at the little suckers - RHS Centre, Harlow Carr, 30/05/2012 |
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| Whitefly - RHS Centre, Harlow Carr, 30/05/2012 |
The stickiness that the aphids cause as they suck the sap out of the young leaves traps spores of other diseases that can then attack the plant. My mum used to pour soapy water with washing up liquid in it onto her roses back in the 60s but RoseClear is systemic which means that the plants take in the chemical and an aphid only has to have a little nibble and they are history. I don't have one aphid on my roses now - at least, I didn't last time I looked.
RoseClear is not, however, good for bees and other insects good for the garden so don't go spraying it at the time of day when the bees are around. Follow the instructions on the bottle when using. Be safe.
Changing the subject, this is a photo of one of my solar lights at night. My mobile phone was resisting my taking the photo but I got it in the end - but sorry it's a bit rubbish! I have eight solar lights at ground level and they change through the rainbow colours. Look real pretty at night. What a shame that in this country we have light pollution and the skies aren't totally black. They'd look great in the total darkness with the stars twinkling overhead. But, what am I saying? Maybe I am adding to the problem! Could my little, low light solar lamps really impact on our skies? Somehow I doubt it. :(
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