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Ant infestation of Gardenia - how to get rid of them
Penelope wrote:
On Sun, 05 Jul 2009 11:16:32 -0500, "Douglas R. Hortvet, Jr." wrote: Thanks for the reply. Issues with 'personal pronouns and paragraphs' - what does that mean? It means you get an 'F' in English. We all make mistakes, I'm the Queen of the Run On sentence; but you make no effort to communicate pleasantly and effectively. Your writing makes you sound like a petulant 2 year old. Are you now or have you ever been an English teacher, or professional teacher of any subject? That you claim my writing makes me 'sound like a petulant 2 year old.' from your first exposure to me in any way and are completely devoid of any knowledge of or about me would support the consideration that you are quick to make substantive and critical statements on topics of which you have no knowledge or awareness - of course that is not an admirable /desirable trait. Did not intend to communicate unpleasantly or ineffectively - rather to provide the relevant information / observations in a concise and succinct manner. Enough of the irrelevant and tangential sidebar - back to the gardening topics - 'Issues' is such an overused and non-specifc term to be essentially meaningless, IMO. And if you claim that's true, you can avoid any and all of your issues. Got it. It would appear you approach problem solving in your garden the same way. When I called the local gardening guru's radio program - he acknowledge that ants can devastate a plants root system. Figure he knows more than I about such things. He acknowledged, as in, it wasn't his idea? As in, you had already decided that the ants were the problem, and pushed that idea? What else did he suggest might be the problem? No - I advised the facts of my observation - and he commented that ants can devastate a root system. Note he did not say they had - just that they can. There is another gardenia in a pot not 5' away and has no problem at all - both are watered the same, and received the same fertilizer and sulphur treatment. Were you planning on telling us what fertilizer you used or what form of sulphur? Fertilizer is a 12-10-4 composition for azaleas, gardenias, magnolias, and camellias. Sulphur product is NitroPhos Soil Sulphur (90% sulphur) The one with the problem had evidence of a blackness on the leaves - black sooty mold - that was removed with strong water spray. And it never occurred to you that the mold was the key to what was wrong with your gardenia? Stop focusing on ants destroying the roots and consider the ant/aphid connection I suggested in my last post. If you have ants and sooty mold, you most likely have aphids. If there are no aphids, there is some kind of insect that produces honeydew feeding on your gardenia. I lean towards aphids being the problem, though, because I so often see ants herding and protecting aphids on plants around here. No it did not. The black areas on the leaves was a small percentage of the plant's total leaf area - although cannot quantify that numerically. From the same garden radio program - black sooty mold was described as a nuisance and easily removed with strong water blasts - not something that would cause the leaves to yellow and fall off. Is it your experience that ants cannot damage a plants root system? It is my experience that ants do not damage roots. And lord knows I've had tons of ants through here. When I moved into this house fire ants were a terrible problem. Now there is a mega colony of Argentine ants in this area, so I've had to learn to live with ants. I try and be positive. The positive thing is that they wipe out fire ants and take out a lot of termites. See? That is good news - that ants do not damage roots. Also good they eat termites. Want to do what is necessary to ensure the plant does not die - the blooms have been large and very pleasantly fragrant. A simple soap spray will kill aphids, or you can try Neem. Neem should also make the ants very unhappy, although it probably would not kill the whole mound. Have Neem oil in my arsenal of garden products and will apply immediately. One of my concerns is what to not apply to gardenias - I generally understand they are somewhat fragile and not that tolerant of 'abuse'. Regards, Doug |
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