4 Notorious Insect Pests You Should Keep Out of Your Flower Garden

Home & Garden Blog

Flowers are beautiful additions to any home garden. Without proper attention, however, flowers will not flourish. Foes of the home flower garden appear to be as many and as the different species of garden flowers available. Insect pests are not equally destructive; some insect pests usually cause more havoc in flower gardens than others. Home gardeners should continually be able to manage attacks by these insect pests to reduce the extent of damage.

Here are some very destructive pests you will should vigilantly look out for if you are to have a fighting chance of keeping your flower garden insect-free all year round.

Leafhoppers

Leafhoppers are notorious for injecting a plant toxin that may deform flowers. A sure telltale sign that these insects have invaded your flower garden is wilting of leaf tips. You can use insecticidal soap to help you keep leafhopper populations in your flower garden under control.

Aphids

These soft-bodied and pear-shaped flower garden pests can be white, black or green in color and have long legs and antennae. Most of them are without wings whereas those that do have wings hold them over the body when stationary. Aphids usually cause stunted growth and distort leaves and flowers. They also excrete 'honeydew,' which can lead to growth of sooty mold, causing more damage to the plant. To keep these pests away from your garden, you can spray it with forceful streams of water mixed with insect soap.

Scale insects

Just like aphids, scale insects also causes stunt plant growth and leave behind honeydew. Once scales have identified a suckling site on the leaf or stem of a flower plant, they attach themselves permanently with a waxy covering. It is this waxy covering that makes them look like a scale. In many cases, you can effectively get rid of these pests by 'picking them off' since they attack specific sections of your flower plants.

Mealybugs

Mealybugs often feed on the leaves and stems of flower plants and may cause stunted growth. Sooty mold can also be spotted where they have excreted honeydew. Like scale insects, mealybugs too have a waxy covering. Because they are slow-moving insects, you can remove them from your flower plants with a strong jet of water.

Even though most insect pests are a nuisance when allowed inside your house, not all of them are unwelcome visitors in your flower garden. It is also important to know what pests are friendly to the flower plants in your garden. Pollinating insects such as bees, for instance, are good for your garden since they aid in cross-pollination.

For more information, contact a local florist.

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8 February 2016

Renovating Your House

Hello! Welcome to my blog! My name is Julie and I live in a large house in the suburbs of Perth, Australia. My husband and I moved into our current home a couple of years ago and since then we have been working to transform it into our dream place. The house itself is lovely, but the interior looked like something from the 1970s. When we started our renovation project we didn't have a clue what we were doing. However, with each job we completed and each mistake we made, we learnt a new skill. I decided I would like to share what we have learnt here.