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Time to bring the tropical plants indoors!

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It’s cooled down here in Toronto quite a bit over the last week. In fact, some night’s have started to get close to freezing temperatures.

So, I think I’m going to bring all my tropical plants indoors again. I did put all the tropicals like the passionflower vines, the jasmine, ornamental peppers and so on inside the enclosed back porch a couple of weeks ago. We even put two tomato plants that had been growing in large pots inside the porch too.

The plants have all done well in there and the tomatoes have really taken off and have produced a number of green tomatoes. Most are large enough to begin ripening and as far as I’m concerned that’s just in time as the porch will be too cool soon for the tomatoes to survive.

I think that I’ll bring the tropical plants inside and place them in our sunny spare bedroom upstairs.

I do this every year, but I’ve found that not all of the plants make it through the winter. We have a humidifier that we use upstairs in the winter time, but I think that the plants find the air too dry even with the extra humidity we try to put in the air.

Perhaps we’ll get another humidifier or vaporizer to put right in the room with the plants. That will certainly increase the total humidity upstairs!

They have to combat dry winter furnace heated air and the occasional white fly or other pesty bug attack. I do give the plants a spray with a mild soapy water solution occasionally.

Anyone have any other tips for me as to how I can make sure my passion flower vines and other tropicals make it through the winter inside the house?






Mosquito repellers

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Well it’s just about mosquito season here. I imagine some of you already have mosquito’s in your gardens.

I hate them! I always swell up quite a bit where they bite me. If it’s not an allergic reaction is definitely an enhanced reaction to their bites … so you can see why I don’t like being bit by them.

Now with West Nile spreading throughout North America I’ve got even more reason to not want to be bit by these pesky blood sucking critters.

Do you do anything to prevent mosquitoes from biting you, or to deter them from your yard?

Naturally rules such as not leaving standing water in a bucket or container apply here … but what else do you do to keep from getting bitten?

I’m not big on chemicals. Not on me or in my yard. We do however use citronella candles, and citronella oil in our tiki torches. That helps to some degree, but it doesn’t totally keep them at bay.

What do you do?

Aphids and Whiteflies in the garden

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Each garden and therefore each gardener is faced with pests that plague their plants from time to time. It’s something that we have to learn how to deal with, and when possible learn to control those pesky pests.

Some plants such as honeysuckle, citrus trees and other flowering shrubs and vines are infested each year with aphids and whiteflies. How can you control some of these pests naturally?

Well, whiteflies can be a real challenge. Planting marigolds near or around plants that frequently get infestations of whiteflies might help. Marigolds secrete a substance around their roots that is absorbed by nearby plants and this helps to repel the insects. This might now work for large shrubs and trees though.

Whiteflies have several natural enemies. Get to know the bugs in your garden. Some of them are beneficial. Insects such as lacewings, big-eyed bugs, minute pirate bugs and a tiny wasp called Encarsia are natural predators of whiteflies. Avoid using pesticides in the area as that will kill off these beneficial bugs that otherwise would find and attack the whiteflies.

Aphids are a big problem in my garden each year. They love my honeysuckle – particularly my Harlequin Honeysuckle for some reason. They also thrive on the newly developing leaves and flower buds of my roses.

When an aphid infestation is really bad I get one of my spray bottles and add a couple of drops of dish washing liquid to the water in the bottle. I then go out and spray the affected areas of each plant with this mixture. By selectively spraying the affected areas of the plants I don’t bother the many other insects that are in my garden- many of which are beneficial. I find that for really bad infestations I have to spray the affected plants with this soapy mixture two or three times in one week. After that the aphids are usually gone.

Like the whitefly, aphids have many natural enemies as well. One of the most important enemies of the aphid are the various species of parasitic wasp that lay their eggs inside aphids. Other predators that feed on aphids are lady bugs or the lady beetle as it’s known in some parts, lacewing and syrphid fly.

There are a number of mail order companies, and some nurseries, that sell a huge variety of beneficial insects for the garden. You might think about purchasing some of these insects to help control your whitefly or aphid problems.

I’ve purchased ladybugs in the past. 2000 I believe! I tried to put them on the plants that I knew the aphids and other pests enjoyed bothering. The lady bugs stayed in my garden for the most part for a day or two but then dispersed throughout the neighborhood. I do think that at the time they stayed long enough to control my pest problem.

If anyone has any other suggestions for controlling whiteflies or aphids in the garden I’d love to hear your suggestions. Please leave a comment.

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