mealy bug eradication

Linda Foulis lmf@beautifulblooms.ab.ca
Sun, 08 Feb 2009 09:00:24 PST
Hello All,
I'm finally taking a stand against the mealy bugs persisting on some of my plants!  I've unpotted all of the clivia, thrown out the
dirt, given the plants a good malathion bath and will either repot in fresh dirt or figure out a way to keep them going out of dirt
until I move.  The hippeastrums are next, I'm wondering if I should give them a good soak or just a short dip in the bath?  These
are the only two that seem affected by the mealy bugs.

I'm also wondering though if I should go ahead and do everything?  Albuca, cyrtanthus, some lilies (wintering inside), veltheimia,
oxalis (all blooming right now, and don't want to disturb them but...) The mealies lay their eggs in the soil right?  Would they lay
eggs in soil of plants they don't seem to affect?  There are some other asst'd bulbs also that don't seem affected.  I would hate to
do all this work and have them come back just because I got lazy and didn't do a couple of seemingly unaffected plants.

Any thoughts, ideas, tips?  Malathion is about the strongest chemical I can find in Canada and it appears to work but again I think
it's because of the dirt that I'm not able to totally get rid of them.  I've tried Avid and it also appears to work but is much too
expensive to attempt a good bath for the bulbs with.

Linda Foulis
Okotoks, AB  Canada

Above zero again today and the snow is melting fast.


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