GARDEN AND GREENHOUSE PESTS

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 637, 13 April 1929, Page 28

GARDEN AND GREENHOUSE PESTS

Ants. —These w-ell known pests occasionally make their home inside a greenhouse, and cause damage in one way or another. To prevent their reaching choice plants, it may be necessary to stand an inverted pot in a seed pan full of water, and to set the plant upon the inverted pot. Small pieces of cottonwool round plant stems are also good preventives. To kill ants, which infest the soil of pots, immerse the pot for two hours in water coloured red with permangate of potash. At other time search out the nest, and destroy it with boiling water or coal tar disinfectant. the same time, wash down the place w-ith ordinary disinfectant solution. Dusting napthaline powder in their haunts discourages them. A bone left lying about, or a piece of bread w-ith syrup or treacle on it, is a certain trap for the pests, which can then be easily killed. * Cockroach. —Most readers are familiar with this pest, which occasionally makes its home in the greenhouse. Being a nocturnal marauder, and hiding in chinks and crannies during the day, it is a difficult pest to deal with. The first thing necessary is to clear away all rubbish. Paint, -whitewash, and hot water may then be freely used. In addition, it is better to poison the pests with beetle poison (from a chemist), and to trap them with beetle traps, or tins containing stale beer and sugar. Oatmeal, with an ounce of Paris Green (poison) mixed with it, is efficient. Weevils. —Although several kinds of weevils may cause trouble, the claycoloured weevils are as a rule the worst. They feed at night, and hide generally under the soil during the day. The full-grown insects attack flowers, seedlings, ferns, and other plants, while the white maggot hatched from their eggs may be found in the compost of all greeenhouse pots. A very good plan is to enter the greenhouse at night and to shake each pot over a paper smeared w'ith treacle, oil or grease. Spraying with nicotine insecticide gradually clears them away, and pots may be allowed to stand up to their rims in permangate of potash solution for two hours to kill the maggots at the roots. In some cases a spoonful of guano, .vatered in w-ith tepid water, works wonders. Wood Lice. —It will be found that jleaDliness in the greenhouse is a great step toward immunity. Thereafter. borax and beetle poison will soon clear away any which are left. Do not let the borax came into contact with tender plants. Mealy Bug. —Syringing with nicotine insecticide is advised, but the work must be kept up until immunity is secured. The methylated spirit bottle and a brush should always be available. Badly infested plants are best burnt, and by a gradual process of elimination, coupled with constant attention, this difficult pest can finally be cleared out. Scale. —This pest may be found on the shoots, leaves, and stems of many greenhouse plants, like the fern, palm, aspidistra, camelia, etc. Hard-wooded plants may be scrubbed or liberally syringed with Gishurst insecticide or paraffin emulsion. Palm, aspidistra, and other leaves may be sponged with these also. The leaf is laid on a sheet of cardboard, and the sponge drawn gently along it. Other plants require to be syringed with nicotine liquid every third day.

AUTUMN BULB NOTES Don’t break up the lily clumps. Leave them alone for a few years until they increase freely. Glad flower is the new name for gladiolus. Adopt it. Daffodil bulbs are still plantable. If you don’t like the straggly foliage after the flowers have gone, place the bulbs in the vegetable garden or somewhere out of the way. Spring without daffodils would hardly be spring at all. Flowers such as are mentioned here make one’s home and garden ever so much more gay. Tulips should be freely planted by

all the cold country gardeners who can find bulbs for placing this or next month. Any position almost will do. A welltilled soil, some shelter from the west, no manure near the bulbs, and only a two-inch soil cover will see the tulips well placed. Save a few of the largest and best of the zinnia blooms for seed. By the middle of the month the best of the floowering will be over. It will not spoil anything to allow an odd head here and there to ripen. Gather the seed before the petals fall. You can grow as good zinnia seed as anyone else. Any batch where there were many good double flowers will pay for watching.