Hi Guys,
I've been growing water lettuce and less successfully water hyacinth
this summer, and since its getting cold I decided to hell with most of
the advice on the internet I am going to try and overwinter some.
I have set up deep storage container half filled water, with a red/blue
led growlight in front of sunny patio door.
I wondered if anyone had any further advice, tales of success and failure.
Peter

On Tue, 15 Sep 2009 16:53:48 EDT, Peter wrote:

Hi Guys,
I've been growing water lettuce and less successfully water hyacinth
this summer, and since its getting cold I decided to hell with most of
the advice on the internet I am going to try and overwinter some.
I have set up deep storage container half filled water, with a red/blue
led growlight in front of sunny patio door.
I wondered if anyone had any further advice, tales of success and failure.
Peter

The time I tried the water lettuce they just slowly got smaller and smaller
till they were no more. The WH, otoh, did best for me when the roots were
in contact with soil, I lost a lot but had enough come spring to start anew
that year, but they sure looked crappy in the house. I found bugs were the
worst problem, spider mites in particular that you can't see and the
over-wintering eggs hatch around March, eat them up.

If I were to do it again, I'd tent them and have a pest strip in the tent.
Killing those dang hidden bugs. That's my plan when I pull the taros out of
the pond this year, while they're sitting on the patio, protected from any
unexpected frost I'm tenting them with plastic and putting a pest strip in
there. What I don't know is if those things are effective against eggs that
might not hatch till March? Regardless, I'll get all the dang egg laying
adults before they come in the house and multiply w/o predators to eat
them. ~ jan
------------
Zone 7a, SE Washington State
Ponds: www.jjspond.us

No-pest strip in a tent is brilliant!

Jim

On Wed, 23 Sep 2009 21:56:04 EDT, Jim Hurley
wrote:

No-pest strip in a tent is brilliant!

Jim

I tried to find what this was in response to, but couldn't figure it
out, so if I'm off base here I'm sorry. A conventional no-pest strip
in a tent is not a good idea, and here's why. No-pest strips give off
a constant (albeit low dose) vapor of toxic fumes or "pesticides,"
which is how they work. It is not a good idea to use these strips in
any area occupied by humans or animals (and quite probably most
plants). My wife and I researched this when we were living in Maui
and thought a "no-pest" type strip would be just the thing for our
(door less) outhouse -- it wasn't.

On Fri, 25 Sep 2009 07:33:38 EDT, Galen Hekhuis
wrote:

I tried to find what this was in response to, but couldn't figure it
out, so if I'm off base here I'm sorry. A conventional no-pest strip
in a tent is not a good idea, and here's why. No-pest strips give off
a constant (albeit low dose) vapor of toxic fumes or "pesticides,"
which is how they work. It is not a good idea to use these strips in
any area occupied by humans or animals (and quite probably most
plants). My wife and I researched this when we were living in Maui
and thought a "no-pest" type strip would be just the thing for our
(door less) outhouse -- it wasn't.

The pest strip is in a plastic tent outside. I used it this spring on my
hibiscus tree that got white fly, and in the living room when the taro came
down with aphids, this keeps the flumes encased. Though when I took the
tent off I'm sure we were somewhat exposed till the room cleared of the
residual left behind. Didn't bother the plants at all, of course I wouldn't
do this if I had fish in the stock tank or patio pond.

The hibiscus had white fly so bad, I was hoping moving it outside would
blow them away. What it did was infect my whole yard. The hibiscus
continued to produce them and looked very sick. Tented it with strip and it
killed them all, 2 weeks apparently wasn't long enough as they started to
come back, so I used these new potted plant tabs with the long acting
systemic and that did them in finally. Course their kin by that time had
moved to the grass... and then found the tomatoes and cucumbers. Even using
harvest spray (like Safer's soap) didn't knock down the numbers. I still
got enough produce, but I wasn't sorry to see the freeze last night do them
all in! ~ jan
------------
Zone 7a, SE Washington State
Ponds: www.jjspond.us

On Sun, 11 Oct 2009 18:58:24 EDT, ~ jan wrote:

The pest strip is in a plastic tent outside. I used it this spring on my
hibiscus tree that got white fly, and in the living room when the taro came
down with aphids, this keeps the flumes encased. Though when I took the
tent off I'm sure we were somewhat exposed till the room cleared of the
residual left behind. Didn't bother the plants at all, of course I wouldn't
do this if I had fish in the stock tank or patio pond.

The hibiscus had white fly so bad, I was hoping moving it outside would
blow them away. What it did was infect my whole yard. The hibiscus
continued to produce them and looked very sick. Tented it with strip and it
killed them all, 2 weeks apparently wasn't long enough as they started to
come back, so I used these new potted plant tabs with the long acting
systemic and that did them in finally. Course their kin by that time had
moved to the grass... and then found the tomatoes and cucumbers. Even using
harvest spray (like Safer's soap) didn't knock down the numbers. I still
got enough produce, but I wasn't sorry to see the freeze last night do them
all in! ~ jan
------------
Zone 7a, SE Washington State
Ponds: www.jjspond.us

Wow! Those are some persistent white flies. I control the ones I get
with an assortment of carnivorous plants I get from Logees.com. I get
butterworts, pitcher plants and sundews from them. I have some plants
that stay inside under grow lights year 'round. I used to get
predatory mites (they work good on spider mites) but the things are
just too darned expensive and when they do their job, they eat up all
their food and starve to death. The carnivorous plants eventually die
too, but I hope it's because they get too rich a diet from too many
bugs to eat (they bloom a lot, then seem sort of "overfed") and not
due to my (admittedly poor) care. The other thing I use is an
oscillating tower fan I got at Wal Mart. It has a "breeze" setting
where the fan oscillates, but only blows now and again, seemingly at
random. I set it in front of my plants for only a few hours each day.
It seems to disrupt the feeding cycle, the reproductive cycle, or
perhaps their sleep cycle, I don't know, but since I have been using
the fan I have been able to both prevent and cure infestations of
several types of critter. Oh yeah, I also use a "mist" type sprayer
device twice weekly.

Outside, the critters don't stand a chance. Considering the lizards
and frogs and praying mantises and stuff it must be tough just being a
bug here. And there is no relief in the air, either. I've got more
dragonflies than you can shake a stick at (by the way, just how many
dragonflies can you shake a stick at anyway?). I've talked about how
dragonflies will follow me around when I'm mowing with my tractor, but
I never realized how many there were around here 'till I started work
on the cabin by the back pond. I figured a swampy pond in northern
Florida would be just the ticket for mosquito infestation. I got
screening, bug repellant, etc. Turned out there was no need. I have
zero, I mean ZERO, mosquitoes down there. I didn't need any bug
repellant, and I didn't bother with the screens (except the ones that
came with the sliding glass doors, but that was just recently). What
I do have down there are oodles of dragonflies, and scads of
damselflies, though the damselflies are smaller and you don't notice
them at first. It isn't quite like clouds of dragonflies obscure the
sun, or even make it difficult to see across the pond, but there are,
quite literally, hundreds in sight at any given moment. They fly into
the cabin, fly around and check it out, and then fly out. They love
to fly in through the sliding door on the side and then out through
one of the ends of the cabin. They will alight on the floor, even on
my shoe. They seem to understand that while I'm a big critter, I pose
no threat to them and they're almost friendly. Of course I get some
enjoyment in pretending I have squadrons of fighter bugs to protect me
from those mean, nasty mosquitoes. Besides, they are incredible stunt
fliers: I have spent hours with binoculars just watching them fly,
and they never crash.

On Fri, 16 Oct 2009 08:31:59 EDT, "ReelMcKoi" wrote:

I had a bad whitefly infestation on poinsettias in my greenhouse last
winter.
Spray systemic didn't work, no sprays did. Research shows they're immune
to most insecticides now. Those No Pest strips made a real difference along
with 2 bug Bombs from Lowe's. The GH is 8.5 X 16.5' in size. It took 3
bombings but it knocked them back at least 99%. Once they infest your
property
you can expect them back every spring. Sure enough, they were back in
the spring. :-(

What zone are you in?

I've only had them once before outside a few years ago. I can only hope our
winter is cold enough, long enough to kill any eggs. It was interesting how
they liked the warmer zone stuff, what we call annuals here, and stayed off
anything perennial (other than being in the grass for a week or so). Since
I toss annuals after frost hopefully any surviving eggs will go with them.
~ jan
------------
Zone 7a, SE Washington State
Ponds: www.jjspond.us

"~ jan" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 16 Oct 2009 08:31:59 EDT, "ReelMcKoi" wrote:

I had a bad whitefly infestation on poinsettias in my greenhouse last
winter.
Spray systemic didn't work, no sprays did. Research shows they're immun
e
to most insecticides now. Those No Pest strips made a real difference
along
with 2 bug Bombs from Lowe's. The GH is 8.5 X 16.5' in size. It took 3
bombings but it knocked them back at least 99%. Once they infest your
property
you can expect them back every spring. Sure enough, they were back in
the spring. :-(

What zone are you in?

I'm in zone 6 but they winter over I know as far north as zone 5.


I've only had them once before outside a few years ago. I can only hope

our
winter is cold enough, long enough to kill any eggs. It was interesting

how
they liked the warmer zone stuff, what we call annuals here, and stayed

off
anything perennial (other than being in the grass for a week or so). Si
nce
I toss annuals after frost hopefully any surviving eggs will go with th
em.

It's better to burn them or bury them deep if you can. Or if that's not
possible, bag them
for trash pickup. Here they infested even the dandelions and native shru
bs
they were so bad
one year.



--
RM....
Frugal ponding since 1995.
rec.ponder since late 1996.
Zone 6. Middle TN USA
~~~~ }((((* ~~~ }{{{{(ö

Despite the best efforts of aphids of various kinds, the water lettuce,
reasonably sucessfully survived the winter. The water hyacinth clung on
too. We have had a couple of hottish days for the area, so I have
decided to transfer all the survivors outside to the pond.
Whether the expense and bother was worth it, is debatable, but it is doable.
Peter

Peter wrote:
Hi Guys,
I've been growing water lettuce and less successfully water hyacinth
this summer, and since its getting cold I decided to hell with most of
the advice on the internet I am going to try and overwinter some.
I have set up deep storage container half filled water, with a red/blue
led growlight in front of sunny patio door.
I wondered if anyone had any further advice, tales of success and failure.
Peter

Congratulations! We never succeeded inside. Our outside hyacinth
take a nasty hit, but if even one survives, we are golden.

Jim