Attention, martial gardeners—guaranteed Japanese beetle death!

[Sukerkin]

True words there, Rich - tho' if I had a nice family of hedgehogs 'in-house' I wouldn't complain (vociferous slug-slayers they are, as well as being cute ).

I'm just waiting for the rain to stop before I go out for some more bindweed removal {can't you tell I'm on holiday, it's done nothing but rain :sulk:}. I want to try and get the stuff clear of my hydrangea's so I can nuke 'em without collateral damage.

I'm going to wait for the new bindweed shoots to show through, give them a cane to climb and then, when they've grown a bit, paint them with a weedkiller/detergent 'goop' which should hopefully eradicate them from the roots up.

I've tried the attrition method of just keep pulling them out (it's supposed to exhaust the root so it dies) but I think I'm losing that war - so time for a tactic change.

Any hnts on how to get rid of rampant American Rosebay Willowherb? It's everywhere and, like the bindweed, it seems to sprout faster than I can pull it up .

 

[exile]

Apart from the Jb horrors, my main problem is thistles. I spend hours a week uprooting them—also on the `wear 'em out' theory—and the end result seems to be that I get more of them than ever. Can't we find a way to deport them back to Scotland???

 

[Kacey]

I recently found out that there is a microscopic critter known as the "bindweed mite" which lives on the stuff... it's not currently available (they were out when I called) but now I have hope for the future!

 

[Sukerkin]

The only thing with the 'Mite Infestation' method is that it actually doesn't get rid of the bindweed, it just inhibits it's growth. The 'MI' method is I think more for the agricultural commuity who just need to keep the viney pest from strangling their crops.

 

[Kacey]

I would be perfectly happy with some inhibition - at least then I could pull them and hope they'd slowly die off... right now, they're popping up faster than I can pull them, especially when it hits 80 by 8 am; by the time I walk the dog it's too hot to do much else.

 

[exile]

I guess I should be glad that we've been spared the nastiness of bindweed (just the name makes me think of the `Devil's Snare' in the first Harry Potter novel)...

... but we actually have something far more ominous on our plates, worse even than the Jbs: poison ivy, which has been growing exuberantly over the past couple years on our property, fed—so I gather from various science newsletters and websites I track—by the increasingly rich carbon dioxide content of the global atmosphere. Even though all vegetation responds positively to enriched CO2, there is a certain class of plants which is unusually inspired, as it were, by extra-dense CO2, and poison ivy, alas, belongs to this group. It's not only faster growing now, but for some reason associated with the faster growth, also more virulent. Double whammy... and unfortunately, there's no real substitute for armoring onesself up and digging out the whole root system. We did this last year for the front, but it's switched to the back, and since we have a kind of micro-forest on our grounds, the stuff gets entangled up with trees and tall bushes and is almost impossible to get at. And I'd just as soon avoid the weapon's-grade herbicides that you need to kill the damned stuff—especially since there are a lot of nearby plants that I don't want damaged...

Be glad, you poison-ivy-free gardeners, that you don't have any of it around you; but also be vigilant—once it starts, it's almost impossible to be completely rid of...

 

[Ceicei]

Morning glories are just as bad.... I still haven't been able to get rid of 'em... They take over the garden and choke the plants/flowers.

 

[qi-tah]

Good thing to know about geraniums, just in case Japanese beetles penetrate our insane quarantine procedures. Fear of terrorism? Its got nothing on our obsession with keeping Australia pest free.

And too right as well. Although now i see that we are going to import apples from fireblight regions of NZ?? What's going on there? :erg:

Nice tip with the geraniums... i do a similar thing with beer traps for the snails. Just about the only thing i reckon VB is good for, but then i'm a bit of beer snob. Ah, beer... is there anything it can't fix?

 

[Shuto]

i do a similar thing with beer traps for the snails. Just about the only thing i reckon VB is good for, but then i'm a bit of beer snob. Ah, beer... is there anything it can't fix?

Yep. I've been dealing with my first serious slug infestation this year. They completely wiped out my first vegetable planting. I've been feeding them beer and they are under control but they are still causing limited damage.

I've been using a heavy mulch for the last few years and haven't been tilling the soil except for the immediate area around the plants. I suspect this mulch has made an ideal environment for slugs.