Life's Context » Flora

The Battle for Bananaleafland.

Periapex — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 13:34:56 +0000

http://www.hydroponicsdictionary.com/images/insects/full_greenlacewings.jpg

Years later we’ve finally gotten most of the parasites on our houseplants under control. To refresh your memory, our houseplants have suffered from a combination of scale insects, mealybugs, and spider mites. All of these pests were introduced from infected plants that were either donated to us, or bought from stores (Home Depot).

Control of the pests has consisted of sprays (Ender’s EndAll) and biologic methods. The spray helps to rapidly reduce a large active population, but doesn’t kill eggs. Weeks later, recurrent infestations occur. Ideally, the spray should be used on a regular basis for some time after bugs are no long noticeable. This helps to erradicate newly hatched pests that we can’t visualize — that are hidden in between leaves and stems — before they lay more eggs.

Unfortunately we have too many plants and too many sensitive animals in the house to use pesticide spray that often. So in the past we resorted to killing off the spider mites with spider mite predators.

Biologic control of pests by using other predatory insects is a costly venture — much more expensive than pesticide spray. Yet if the temperature and humidity are proper for the predators to thrive it is orders of magnitude more effective. I had to order and re-order the spider mite killers through the winter that we used them because conditions were not ideal for them. Yet over time, recurrent spider mite flareups became a thing of the past.

Now, we’re dealing with exploding mealybug and scale insect populations as our houseplants go a bit more dormant for the winter. Enter Green Lacewings.

Our Lacewings were shipped as eggs. The larvae of these Green Lacewings are hungry little suckers and once hatched seek out any other insect they can find to feed off of. If they can’t find other insects, they’ll go after one another. This is bad news for scale insects, mealybugs, spider mites, aphids, and lots of other plant-sucking pests. It’s good news for us.

Bananaleafland

A Painful Long Weekend.

Periapex — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 22:55:39 +0000

It’s Canada Day here in Canada! Is that redundant?

Anyway as long-time readers of my blog have come to understand, I need to be supervised on the weekends — especially on long weekends. Self-injury is one of my problems.

This weekend was no exception.

Instead of me taking it easy and enjoying all of the sights on our place:

I decided to dust off our bicycles and adjust the brakes. After I was finished adjusting my brakes, I took the bike out for a test ride. Everything checked out well going uphill. I turned around and started on my way home — downhill.

The skid mark is the only evidence of my accident.

Cruising downhill, wind blowing by me, the bike felt good. Back brake felt good, front brake felt pretty responsive to light pressure.

It was as I was testing the front brake that someone who doesn’t know any better ran in front of the bike. My reaction was to squeeze the already-squeezed front brake harder. The reaction of my newly adjusted bike was to stop the front wheel without question or hesitation.

I know that my lines weren’t great, but I think I might have pointed my toes as I did a somersault over the handlebars. Mediocre dance form that was.

I’m now the owner of a modest case of road rash. I don’t have Bandaids long or wide enough to cover the scrapes, so DentalInsider suggested that I use Maxipads to cover them. Good suggestion, but I’m not sure how to get them to stick on. This will be maybe yet another use of duct tape.

Moral of story? If you’re masochistically inclined, know that softened water on open wounds is the same as salt water on open wounds.

The Five Leaved Clover Weekend.

Ameloblast — Mon, 29 May 2006 13:55:00 +0000

We’re in the process of packing for Switzerland. The Girl’s best friend is getting married over there, so expect lots of pictures in a couple of weeks. This last weekend saw us also busy with dancing, splitting and burning wood, and finding mutated clover.

Pink Trillium.

Ameloblast — Wed, 17 May 2006 14:25:00 +0000

As the Trillium die, they turn pink.

Trilliums in the Neighbourhood.

Ameloblast — Tue, 02 May 2006 21:59:00 +0000

The spring around our neighbourhood is always marked with an abundance of Trillium (the official flower of Ontario).

Spring is in the Air…

Ameloblast — Tue, 28 Mar 2006 15:43:00 +0000

…and our Hibiscus at home is happily flowering.

Berries and Bugs.

Ameloblast — Sat, 10 Dec 2005 21:24:00 +0000

With our plants recovering from salt shock, they’re more susceptible to parasites. Mealy bugs have appeared on this one where previously they never were.

Avocado Plants Don’t Like Softened Water.

Ameloblast — Fri, 02 Dec 2005 17:03:00 +0000

This is what happens when you water Avocado trees with NaCl softened water. Our water softener wasn’t brining properly for months and once it was fixed we had forgotten about our plants.

We continued to water the plants in the house with our tap water until the Avocado started looking like this and losing leaves. At that point we realized there was a problem. We had to leach the soil and now we water all of our plants with straight well water. They are all in different stages of recovery…

Our Pest Infestation.

Ameloblast — Fri, 11 Nov 2005 16:09:00 +0000

We’ve been trying to eradicate Spider Mites, Mealy Bugs, and Scale Insects from many of our houseplants for the last year and a half. We’ve had some slow success but I found out today that some Ladybugs can help to control these pests. Apparently Ladybugs will eat more than just their favourite insect: the Aphid.

We have a few Ladybugs in the house that I vacuum up every so often, but now I think I’ll just transPlant them. Here’s one on our Begonia.

Treenapping Hooligans.

Ameloblast — Thu, 03 Nov 2005 00:09:00 +0000

Last Summer, the Girl and I planted seven three-foot Colorado Blue Spruces at the front of the house near the easement to the road. We staggered them nicely so that they would provide a screen for the house down at the road. The existing trees in front of the house are mostly maples and aren’t very good at screening in the winter. The remaining evergreens are hemlocks that are having a rough time surviving the house builder’s regrade of the hill and subsequent deforestation there.

In December after the Girl and Boy returned from their wedding in Mexico, I was out for a walk and noticed that something looked odd about the front area of the house. Upon further investigation it turned out that someone had dug up and stolen four of the spruces. They left the three that were closest to the road. We called the cops and reported it, but how could they possibly find the culprits?

Well we thought that the rest of the trees were safe. We were wrong. Someone stole two more last night. Can you believe that? I hope the stolen trees survive the transplant. I’m sure they’ve lost lots of roots and we have been getting frost almost every night for the last week.

Any ideas, anyone, how to prevent this from happening again here or to others?