ospam (Bungadora) wrote:

I noticed this year that the petunias are sticky--like from sap(one
they are secreting). When I dead head them the dead flowers all stick
to the sap all over my fingers. I don't know if that was always true
of petunia. I don't recall that on last year's wave petunias from
seed.

I'm curious to see what answers you get because I had a similar experience with
my wave petunias, although I don't think it was a heavy aphid infestation. I
had one that just dripped with sap, but it was healthy as hell and kept
producing flowers until November.(and I'm in zone 3)
Dora2

Mine is also very healthy otherwise. The purple ones are getting so
heavy they are hanging down low. The basket has vanished underneath
them and it is flowering heavily. The leaves are not curling, which is
a sign that the Aphid's secretions into the plant have reached high
levels.

Sticky leaves is a symptom of aphid infestation. The bugs are pretty
tiny and you've got to really look for them. They usually are on the
lowest underside of the flowers on mine. The little corpses stuck to
all the leaves is strange. My ASSUMPTION is they get stuck in the sap,
which is apparently leftover from them sucking too much out of the
plant. Why would a bug cause a sap that it becomes stuck in and die.
Not very Darwin of it.

Here's one article about them...
http://www.treesforyou.org/Planting/...ngs_sticky.htm

DiGiTAL ViNYL (no email)
Zone 6b/7, Westchester Co, NY, 1 mile off L.I.Sound
2nd year gardener
http://members.aol.com/DigitalVinyl66/Garden2004.html