well i guess farm1 you can believe the book which mainly only deal
with chemicals to control things and never look for the root cause.

but i have had ants and aphids together many times as have many other
gardeners.

i am on many other forums where there are horticulturists helping
people and they give the same advice that i have.



On Sat, 26 Aug 2006 14:06:14 +1000, "Farm1" please@askifyouwannaknow
wrote:

snipped
With peace and brightest of blessings,

len

--
"Be Content With What You Have And
May You Find Serenity and Tranquillity In
A World That You May Not Understand."

http://www.gardenlen.com

"gardenlen" wrote in message
...
well i guess farm1 you can believe the book which mainly only deal
with chemicals to control things and never look for the root cause.

but i have had ants and aphids together many times as have many other
gardeners.


I get heaps of aphids on my roses, and even more on my nasturtiums
underneath. So I've given up with the nasturtiums - too hard to keep free
of aphids. I've always had ants around the area as well, and I knew they
farmed the aphids, but it never occurred to me to remove the ants. I'll try
that this year thanks.

Jen

that's about the best you can do jen,

i as a rule only recommend ations that i have done myself, not into
plagerising passages out of books.

and too many times over the years the question has been asked by
gardeners who have tried every thing except flame throwers and the
aphids keep coming back, yup because as quick as you spray them the
ants bring new ones back.

get rid of the ants and then hose the aphids away when i've had them
this has worked, i got roses in pots here got no ants in the pots and
got no aphids.


On Sat, 26 Aug 2006 08:41:22 GMT, "Jen"
wrote:

snipped
With peace and brightest of blessings,

len

--
"Be Content With What You Have And
May You Find Serenity and Tranquillity In
A World That You May Not Understand."

http://www.gardenlen.com

"Jen" wrote in message
"gardenlen" wrote in message

well i guess farm1 you can believe the book which mainly only deal
with chemicals to control things and never look for the root
cause.

but i have had ants and aphids together many times as have many
other
gardeners.


I get heaps of aphids on my roses, and even more on my nasturtiums
underneath. So I've given up with the nasturtiums - too hard to
keep free
of aphids.

But which of the 4,000+ species of aphids do you have on your
nasturtiums? You probably have the rose aphid on your roses but on
your nasturtiums.................?

"gardenlen" wrote in message

well i guess farm1 you can believe the book which mainly only deal
with chemicals to control things and never look for the root cause.

I didn't mention any book that called for chemicals. You are making
an incorrect assumption but then you've made a number of incorrect
assumtions in this discussion.

You have also claimed (and presumably believe) that aphids are
flighless and must be carried. Rose aphids certainly do have wings at
soem stage of the season so I assume that they can fly. You have also
written of ants farming "those thript type bugs". Aphids and thrips
are 2 different insects. You also say that you have "observed ants
harvesting aphids not only on roses but on other plants as well".
Ants don't "harvest" aphids but they may eat the honeydew. Rose
aphids don't live on other plants except perhaps pyracantha.

Ants are not the cause of aphids. Aphids may result in ants being on
the roses to get the exudate from the aphids as you describe, BUT
without the aphids being there in the first place, they wouldn't be on
the roses. You said yourself that ants do NOT damage or eat the roses
so destroying the ants is only a secondary consideration. If you get
rid of the aphids then the ants won't be on the roses because they
don't eat the rose.

but i have had ants and aphids together many times as have many
other
gardeners.

You assume that all aphids are the same. They arent' there are
4,000+varieties of aphids.

And Len, not so long ago you wrote:
""gardenlen" wrote in message
g'day jen,

i'm no rose grower, so probably can't help too much here, but the
new
home we bought had some roses in the garden, so in preperation for
pulling the garden out i just cut them all back to almost ground
level, and those plants loved it they are a mass of growth and
healthy
looking plants not the spindly yukky looking things that uninspired
me
even more about the plant.

i know you are supposed to thin them out and prune them to an open
vase shape, but hey without any water these plants look great. the
funny bit i reckon they may even put on their best show of flowers
next season.

oh i'm even taking them out of the garden and potting them and they
haven't looked back, treat 'em rough i say they'll love it.

You admit that you aren't a rose grower.

I am. I planted my first rose 35 years ago. I also stopped coutning
when I got to 108 roses in my garden. Since I stopped counting (and
there are more than 108 roses in my garden) I have planted more roses.
I also have seen pics of your last 2 gardens and looked at the new
pics of your current place. Not a rose bush in sight.

I have aphids each year and I DON'T have ants on my roses and never
have had ants on my roses. My aphids disappear as the biological
controls work

i am on many other forums where there are horticulturists helping
people and they give the same advice that i have.

They may say that if you get rid of the aphids then you will get rid
of the ants on your roses.

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.

--
ant
Don't try to email me;
I'm borrowing the spammer du jour's addy

g'day ant,

then you may want to figure how they get inside your home you do have
fly screen i imagine and then i guess the aphids need to be smart
enough to figure which room of the home you have the plants in.

when ever aphids and i don't discriminate come onto my idoor plants i
generally find that ants have visited.



On Sat, 26 Aug 2006 23:01:04 +1000, "ant"
wrote:
snipped
With peace and brightest of blessings,

len

--
"Be Content With What You Have And
May You Find Serenity and Tranquillity In
A World That You May Not Understand."

http://www.gardenlen.com

gardenlen wrote:
g'day ant,

then you may want to figure how they get inside your home you do have
fly screen i imagine and then i guess the aphids need to be smart
enough to figure which room of the home you have the plants in.

when ever aphids and i don't discriminate come onto my idoor plants i
generally find that ants have visited.

I do get ants coming inside quite often. And I have a giant boston fern that
is very sticky, and is visited by ants! Doesn't seem to bother the fern at
all, but the floor underneath it gets sticky.


--
ant
Don't try to email me;
I'm borrowing the spammer du jour's addy

g'day ant,

they are very resourcefull, and yes they will bring mealy bugs and
scale onto your ferns.

if not dealt with the ferns is going to suffer heaps could all but
die.

with scale amd mealy you either have to pick them off or with mealies
using a cotton bud dipped in meth touch each bug, or cut the fern
right back and douse with a 1/4 rate mix of white oil, the worst with
mealies is if the ants colonise them on the roots of the plant it is
usually best to destry the plant, on plams i ahve manged to wash the
roots and all in a white oil mix but it realy knocks the plant about,
and not guranteed to be successful.

On Sun, 27 Aug 2006 12:34:36 +1000, "ant"
wrote:

snipped
With peace and brightest of blessings,

len

--
"Be Content With What You Have And
May You Find Serenity and Tranquillity In
A World That You May Not Understand."

http://www.gardenlen.com

gardenlen wrote:

with scale amd mealy you either have to pick them off or with mealies
using a cotton bud dipped in meth touch each bug, or cut the fern
right back and douse with a 1/4 rate mix of white oil, the worst with
mealies is if the ants colonise them on the roots of the plant it is
usually best to destry the plant, on plams i ahve manged to wash the
roots and all in a white oil mix but it realy knocks the plant about,
and not guranteed to be successful.

I'll have to look at the fern again, but it's been like this for years. It
grows strongly and well (in my experience all these boston/fishbone ferns
do). However, all my palm trees have over the years had the same thing, the
stickyness, the ants. I could see something on them and attacked it again
and again with white oil, but never got anywhere. Must have been in the
roots, like you say. bloody ants! I don't feel guilty using dead ant on them
now.
--
ant
Don't try to email me;
I'm borrowing the spammer du jour's addy

"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)

g'day john,

hmmm interesting that one hey? i encourage the milk & sow thistles as
i find that the othe bugs would rather chew on them than me vege's
etc, also the thistles flower profusely and bring in the pollinators
for better tomato and capsicum pollination.

i haven't had a lot of problems with aphids in my gardens all the
same, i'm currently encouraging m.t's to grow in this garden for the
same above reasons, but will take note to see if i get more aphids or
not.

for me but i would be assuming that if the aphids are happy on the
m.t's then they may leave the other plants alone??? initially if i
found that i would be going along the lines of the m.t being a good
companion plant to have, wonder but??

currently but still only got aphids on one rose and as the m.t's are
new as well they most likley didn't over winter on them i'd be
thinking.

but suppose if the ants are doing the farming then again that could be
the lynch pin, or do suppsoe that the aphids move themselves from the
m.t to the roses say?



On Wed, 30 Aug 2006 00:27:06 GMT, John Savage
wrote:

snipped
With peace and brightest of blessings,

len

--
"Be Content With What You Have And
May You Find Serenity and Tranquillity In
A World That You May Not Understand."

http://www.gardenlen.com

gardenlen writes:
hmmm interesting that one hey? i encourage the milk & sow thistles as
i find that the othe bugs would rather chew on them than me vege's
etc, also the thistles flower profusely and bring in the pollinators
for better tomato and capsicum pollination.

That's a logical-sounding line of thinking, Len, but ....

for me but i would be assuming that if the aphids are happy on the
m.t's then they may leave the other plants alone???

Possibly you are right -- but your explanation relies on thistles being
an around-the-year crop, and are they? I think of milk thistles as being
a winter/spring plant, and if so then the aphids will have to move on to
something else in your garden when their thistle hosts disappear during
summer. If my theory is right, then this would give rise to the reputation
of milk thistles giving overwintering hosting to aphids.

but suppose if the ants are doing the farming then again that could be
the lynch pin, or do suppsoe that the aphids move themselves from the
m.t to the roses say?

I haven't studied aphids closely enough. (Maybe I'll get out the paint
pallete and put a few red crosses on some aphids so I can monitor their
movements?) But I'm sceptical that aphids have evolved to be totally
dependent upon ants for locomotion. It is stretching my credulity that
if an aphid wants to get from Rosebud #1 to Rosebud #3 it must flag down
a passing ant to taxi it around the plant. My experience with aphids is
that there are lots of aphids AND ants on the red tips of my prize lemon
tree, but I don't object as there is plenty of juice and sap for everyone
to have a share! On minature roses I've seen every bud covered with aphids,
but I doubt that an ant (or even a hundred of them) could have assiduously
carried equal numbers of aphids out to each bud and with such care as to
not miss even one bud.

I just spray them with my metho+water mixture and say good riddance! The
ants must be fast learners if they are responsible for backpacking aphids
around the garden--they make no attempt to replace those lost to my metho
spray!! Maybe baby aphids being so small and lightweight can hitch a ride
with butterflies and bees and on the beaks and feet of birds? I think that
might be quite likely. But I reckon aphids probably have their own little
legs to propel them around. I will investigate this question more closely!
--
John Savage (my news address is not valid for email)

"John Savage" wrote in message

But I reckon aphids probably have their own little
legs to propel them around. I will investigate this question more
closely!

The rose aphid goes by the Latin name of "Macrosiphum rosae" if you
want to google it.

John Savage wrote:
"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. :-(

Bugger. I do have a lot of those big, squeaky thistles. Keep spraying them
and the pattersons, and am making inroads, but never quite get on top of
them. And there's a giant patch of both within sight of the house. And, it's
quite warm up here, compared with down in Canberra. Sigh. Now things are
becoming clearer. Well, I'm going to get the biggest, giantest bag of Borax
EVER and hit those mongrel ants for a start.

--
ant
Don't try to email me;
I'm borrowing the spammer du jour's addy