A bit of a mystery, this...
A few evenings ago, I was watering my 15-year old grapefruit, grown
from pip, which lives in a pot sheltered up against the L-shaped front
wall of my house. Having soaked the pot, I sprinkled the foliage, only
to raise a swarm of black flies (as in house flies, but slightly
bigger, just under bluebottle size, and a blacker shade of black).
Why oh why would black flies shelter in my grapefruit foliage? I'd
never had this experience in the previous 15 years!

Cat(h)

Cat(h) wrote:
A bit of a mystery, this...
A few evenings ago, I was watering my 15-year old grapefruit, grown
from pip, which lives in a pot sheltered up against the L-shaped front
wall of my house. Having soaked the pot, I sprinkled the foliage, only
to raise a swarm of black flies (as in house flies, but slightly
bigger, just under bluebottle size, and a blacker shade of black).
Why oh why would black flies shelter in my grapefruit foliage? I'd
never had this experience in the previous 15 years!

YURK !! Perhaps it's something to do with your compost. Did you manure?
Eggs where in there and flies hatched and crept up in the foliage?
Something died close by and flies took to the nearest foliage?
Something on the grapefruit foliage, smell/food, attractive to flies?
Whatever, it's horrible !!

La Puce wrote:
Cat(h) wrote:
A bit of a mystery, this...
A few evenings ago, I was watering my 15-year old grapefruit, grown
from pip, which lives in a pot sheltered up against the L-shaped front
wall of my house. Having soaked the pot, I sprinkled the foliage, only
to raise a swarm of black flies (as in house flies, but slightly
bigger, just under bluebottle size, and a blacker shade of black).
Why oh why would black flies shelter in my grapefruit foliage? I'd
never had this experience in the previous 15 years!

YURK !! Perhaps it's something to do with your compost. Did you manure?
Eggs where in there and flies hatched and crept up in the foliage?
Something died close by and flies took to the nearest foliage?
Something on the grapefruit foliage, smell/food, attractive to flies?
Whatever, it's horrible !!

It is pretty yukky.
It's definitely not the compost, as what's in the pot is all bought in
stuff, not my home made stuff.
I looked around the pot, and inside it, to see if there was anything
yukky rotting such as a dead bird, or a dead mouse, or some such thing,
which might have been their nursery... but nothing. Although that
seemed the most obvious thing. I checked the foliage yesterday
evening, and the flies have disappeared, thank goodness.

Cat(h)

On 25/8/06 13:46, in article
, "Cat(h)"
wrote:

snip
I looked around the pot, and inside it, to see if there was anything
yukky rotting such as a dead bird, or a dead mouse, or some such thing,
which might have been their nursery... but nothing. Although that
seemed the most obvious thing. I checked the foliage yesterday
evening, and the flies have disappeared, thank goodness.

What is the pot made of? Could that be the cause? We've sometimes noticed
that ordinary house type flies settle on wooden benches around the garden.
Goodness knows why because they're not treated in any way but in hot
weather especially, some of them are absolutely covered.

--
Sacha
www.hillhousenursery.co.uk
South Devon
http://www.discoverdartmoor.co.uk/

Sacha wrote:
On 25/8/06 13:46, in article
, "Cat(h)"
wrote:

snip
I looked around the pot, and inside it, to see if there was anything
yukky rotting such as a dead bird, or a dead mouse, or some such thing,
which might have been their nursery... but nothing. Although that
seemed the most obvious thing. I checked the foliage yesterday
evening, and the flies have disappeared, thank goodness.

What is the pot made of? Could that be the cause? We've sometimes noticed
that ordinary house type flies settle on wooden benches around the garden.
Goodness knows why because they're not treated in any way but in hot
weather especially, some of them are absolutely covered.

--

The pot is heavy duty plastic - it is very large with a large-ish tree
in it, so to keep it moveable I avoided my otherwise preferred
frostproof terracotta. Though it may yet get one of those on next
repotting, because it is now in its final home.

The flies seem to have gone. When I sprinkled the foliage first a few
days back, though, a good 30 or 40 flies flew off!

Re. the wooden garden benches, who knows, may be they are attracted to
the resin or other sap which oozes from the wood?

Cat(h)