[b said:
Quote[/b] (jimscott @ April 09 2005,4:18)]On Thursday I noticed that my D. callistos flower stalks had aphids. I snipped and flushed them. Now I have had success in ridding my D. capensis, D. adela,and D. spatulata of aphids by drowning, but now I am not sure if they are just migrating to different plants in the collection. People have suggested Orthene as a better alternative to drowning and I picked up Orthenex at Home Depot. I read the instructions and ingredients. I didn't see Orthene listed and it suggested not using on indoor plants. Has anyone used this product before?
What a co-iny-dink Jim, I just sprayed all my plants this afternoon with Ortho Orthenex because of aphids. Aphids really hit my D. scorpioides hard this winter making them look pretty bad. I had been using Garden Safe™ Fungicide 3. It uses an extract of Neem oil which caused the tentacles on the sundews to curl up, like they had been burned. It only knocked the aphids back temporarily though. The Orthene I mixed a half gallon (3tsp/½ gal) and sprayed all my plants, an ant hill, the foundation of my house, the ant hill again, and diluted the bit that was left and dumped it under my deck. In other words, a half gallon went a long ways.
So far only the
Drosera nitidula ×
ericksoniae and
D. scorpioides (not suprised) have shown the burned tantacles and the dew on the tentacles of my
D. anglica has dried up but otherwise look fine. The
Pinguicula,
Nepenthes, and
Sarracenia don't look like they were affected at all. The aphids are still twitching on the
D. scorpioides but many have thrown themselves on the tentacles which they haven't done before so it looks promising. As for the
Utricularia, I probably won't know until they send more leaves and flowers up (or not).
The smell (once it toned down a bit) reminded me of a garden center. That chemical smell you get when you walk in amongst the pesticides and herbicides. Definitely want to spray outside and leave the plants to air out a bit until they dry off. In a confined space, the smell would be a bit overwhelming.
When I reapply it in 10 days or so I'm going to cut back to 2 tsp/½ gallon and see if the
Drosera handle that better.
Note: 1tbs=3tsp