Dealing with Summer Pests
By: Amelia Keener
This summer has shown a lot of problems for our gardens; diseases and pests are running wild! Those really early, wet days brought on a lot of powdery mildew, and the cold snap in April killed off a lot of new growth. But don’t despair! This doesn’t mean it’s a bad year to garden. You can still create your best garden ever! Keep reading for some tips on how to keep your garden happy and healthy!
Disease Management
The first step in managing plant diseases is to identify the fact that you have a disease. Sounds easy enough, but at first glance, something as simple as overwatering can look like an infectious disease. Many issues, such as soil problems and nutrient deficiencies, are not diseases and can be remedied in other ways. Spots and lesions are signs of diseases, for example. If you’re having difficulty figuring out whether you have a disease or not, bring a picture or a leaf sample here at Lanier Nursery and Gardens and we can help diagnose what’s going on with your plant.
As soon as you realize that you have a disease, you need to remove all diseased material. This will help stop the disease from spreading more. Remove any diseased leaves, stems, or even roots. Don’t worry, they’ll grow back. Also, you don’t need to cut off the whole thing, just the diseased section and a little margin area, about 6 inches. This makes sure that you have actually removed all of the disease and only the healthy parts remain.
To treat the disease, you’ll need a fungicidal treatment. You can find many different treatments here at Lanier Nursery and Gardens! This works best as a preventative as you can’t really undo the disease, just slow it down and stop its spread. It’s especially important to do this with plants that have already shown a tendency towards disease in the past.
Sanitization and sterilization are your biggest allies in the fight against disease.
Sanitization: You need to make sure the area is completely free of the disease. So, in addition to cutting the diseased parts off, you might also need to remove fallen diseased material from the ground, even if it’s dead. Leaving them on the ground can bring the disease back next spring. You may need to remove any mulch or pine straw around the base as well.
Sterilization: You need to keep your supplies disease-free. This means cleaning off your pruning shears and any other tools to keep diseases from spreading from plant to plant. All you need is a spray bottle of rubbing alcohol to mist on your tools in between use. Or you could use about 1 part bleach to 10 parts water. Either way, make sure your supplies are clean!
Insect Control
It’s important to always be looking for insect problems on your plants. They can hide under leaves, on branches, at the base of the plant, you name it! You’ll also need to identify the insect; some insects can be disastrous to your plants, others can merely be passing through and are no big deal. We can help you identify insects and insect damage as well!
The most natural way to deal with insects is by physically removing them. This is probably your best bet if there’s only a couple of insects on your plant. You can blast them with a hose or just simply squish them. Don’t worry about removing the leaf! If you take it off, you’ve become a bigger problem than the insect that was munching on it!
If physical removal isn’t an option, an insecticide is a great way to go. There are two main types of insecticides: organic and chemical.
Organic insecticides are naturally occurring chemicals that either repel insects, smother them, or infect them with diseases. Some of the biggest types of organic insecticides are insecticidal soap and horticultural oil, both of which coat the insect and smother them. These work especially well on soft-bodied insects. Other types include Pyrethrin, which acts as a poison, Spinosad, which causes a bacteria infection, and BT, which causes a bacteria infection specifically in worms and caterpillars.
Chemical insecticides are made in labs. They often have natural ingredients in them. Just because they’re made in a lab doesn’t mean that they’re not safe. For example, Permethrin is an insecticide that isn’t organic but is used as a tick repellent for pets and a mosquito repellent for humans. So as you can see, it’s still safe to use. There are two main types that you can use: foliar or systemic.
Foliar insecticides go on the ground or the leaves of the plant and the insect takes it in by coming into contact with it.
Systemic insecticides are taken up by the plant’s roots and kill the insect when it tries to eat the plant.
You can find all these different types of insecticides in our Bonide center here at Lanier Nursery and Gardens!
Deer Control
Finally, no conversation about pests would be complete unless we talked about deer. Deer are one of the biggest problems people face down here in Georgia. But unlike insects, you can’t just kill the deer to get rid of them. We have specific hunting seasons, so we have to find ways to keep the deer away without killing them.
The main problem with deer is that they’ll eat just about anything. There are certain things they especially love, like hostas and hydrangeas, but very few things will be unappealing to them. Even some plants that they formally avoided, like gardenias, they’re beginning to try. They’ll basically eat anything that comes into their path.
One of the ways to try to stop them is with a physical barrier. Deer can jump around eight feet high, but they can’t jump both height and distance. So, they can jump about six feet high if there’s a slope. What this means is that you’ll need a very tall fence to keep them out. It doesn’t have to be anything fancy, you could even use chicken wire! You could also create a labyrinth over your plants with fishing wire. The main problems with physical barriers are that they can be ugly and expensive. But it’s still a great option if you don’t want to mess specifically with the plants themselves, if you have vegetable plants, for example.
Another way to deal with deer is through repellents. These make the plants either smell or taste bad to the deer. One of the best products for this is Repellex. It’s a systemic granule, which means that you sprinkle the granules around the base of the plant and water it in. The plant will take it in through the roots, and it makes the leaves of the plant taste hot to the deer. It lasts for a while, but you will have to reapply to make sure all the new leaves get it too. It’s not the best to use on plants that you plan to eat, but it works great for everything else! You can find some here at the nursery!
Be sure to check out more of Nathan’s podcasts on eradicating pests! Now get gardening!