"ant" writes:
Farm1 wrote:
Ants don't "harvest" aphids but they may eat the honeydew. Rose
aphids don't live on other plants except perhaps pyracantha.

That's interesting, I didn't know that. I grow Basil inside, and sometimes
end up with horrible aphid infestations on it, nasty green ones. I always
assumed the sneaky buggers were coming up from the roses.

I read where milk thistles, the common ones that budgies and other caged
birds love to nibble on, are a gardening menace. Aphids will over-winter
on thistles to then re-infest your valued plants next spring. So I checked
on the roots and under the lower leaves of thistles during winter, and sure
enough those regions were thick with aphids. I also discovered that fennel
is a winter host for aphids, the winter foliage of some I inspected before
eating was seen to be chock-a-block covered with aphids. So there are two
sources that you might want to eliminate from your immediate surroundings
to minimise the chances of re-infestation by aphids.

Here I'd been encouraging thistles 'cause they at least provided some green
colour in a fallow winter bed of straw mulch. :-(
--
John Savage (my news address is not valid for email)