BCSS - Forum

Bug Clear Ultra contains Acetamiprid, a neonicotinoid similar to what used to be in Provado before Bayer decided to rip us all off. It is the only systemic insecticide easily available in the UK now. It lists mealies on the label and should be effective, but the year I used it was the year I got root mealies. Probably a coincidence but hasn't made me a fan. It also lists spider mites on the label but control isn't great on either those or the false variety.

Deltamethrin is usually considered effective against mealybug, although obviously not much use against root mealies. Probably not much better than a soap or alcohol spray though.

At the moment there is only one nuisance and that is that little pinky/ red oxalis , which just pops up everywhere .
I just can not get rid of this ! How to stop it ? Anyone ? Debbie

Avoid it from flowering. Cut off the stems with scissors. If you prevent it from flowering and shooting off the seeds, you will get rid of the plant eventually. Trimming the Oxalis is easier than to pull out the entire plant, especially if you have ferocious cacti where it likes to get in between the spines at the bottom.

A snail got to my Senecio deflersii which was on the top shelf!

Senecio deflersii

I had that too, moved it to a different sunnier position then it got sun burn

Having just finished a sweep through picking out the last few pieces of broken glass I can confidentially say the Fox falling through the greenhouse roof earlier in the year has damaged / destroyed more of my plants than insects ever have......still really cross it happened to land squarely on the Adromischus collection! I can advise they are not very resilient to falling foxes.

Aphid larvae.
I HATE them!
You can seen them squirming around inside the body of the cactus they are currently sucking dry like some kind of parasitic Alien

correction: that should be Sciarid fly larvae, those evil little things.

1) Red spider mite arrived for the first time in my life this summer. I used to think all creatures had a place in this world, and we just respected that and worked around them. Right now if all RSM were to be exterminated from this world I would be happy. Not sure what good they do, I suppose they are food for some things up the food chain, but they killed a few of my plants and badly disfigured others and I did not see it until it was far too late.
2) After that root mealy bug, I found some plants with them when investigating why they were not growing.
I've not had yet other pests some have referred to.
3) Mealy bug has been relatively easy to deal with, picking off the occasional ones I have seen, except when bringing in a new clustered plant which is infested out of sight between the offshoots.

I personally find root mealies far worse than normal mealies, as you just don't know they are there and routine tipping out of pots to check is far from ideal. they are the only pest I have any kind of struggle with. After a years worth of real effort in eradicating them from my collection I haven't seen a mealy for a couple of years, and being careful with new plants means I've stayed on top of it, (fingers crossed).

I have decided ants are now my biggest concern since I moved house both inside the greenhouse and outside in the garden.

I have a lovely Cercis Canadensis "forest pansy" but this spring I found half of it didn't come into growth. When I looked closer I found that most of the underside of branches were smothered in scale insects tended by ants and the tree had simply cut off supplies to these branches. Last weekend I had to throw away a bay tree for the same reason.

Last evening I was checking the greenhouse as normal and noticed a small pile of soil around a pot of Aloe imalotensis. Being suspicious I took it out of the pot and found an ant farm inside tending a herd of root mealy bugs! I dealt with that and then started to check other pots in the vicinity and found small infestations in each pot. I shall carry on depotting until I get to a clear area.