I use a squirt bottle filled with warm water on 'stream' to hose them off. But once I had a baby citrus tree that was failing due to an aphid invasion that I could not control with water, so I used Malathion, and that was the end of the aphids for that season, and the tree was strong enough to take it the following year. You can use a systemic insecticide and pick off all of the flowers for a few weeks so that the bees don't die. I did that once for two phoenix roebellinis that had scale, and it worked. But if you think the aphids will return, then I would just replace the plants with something less delicious to the aphids.

A squirt water bottle doesn't have enough pressure to dislodge these suckers - I have to use a higher pressure setting on the hose nozzle! I keep washing them away but they come back faster than I can deal with.

I think I may have to just get ride of my 4 Sun parasols - didn't have this problem last year but I only planted them late summer. I don't have time for this level of maintenance :(

I don't want to use insecticides because I have organic herbs, and I have cats - the cats are inside and have access only to the back enclosed patio, but I just don't use chemicals like this around my house because I don't want to expose them.

The same thing happened to my Lavaglut rose bush! Finally, I grabbed a white napkin and with a stick gently scraped them off each bud, they fell on the napkin where they got squished and thrown away. Gross but it worked. Couple of days later, I was going to do the same thing, but then I saw some ladybug larvae and no aphids :D So you can also look into getting ladybugs.

How long have they been around? Usually their life cycle is pretty fast. If you just mechanically remove them by squishing them or knocking them off with water I haven't really found aphids to be a huge problem.

If they are a long lasting ongoing thing it may be a sign that there is something else wrong. Plant is growing in the wrong conditions (too much shade/sun, too much fertilizer promoting weak new growth) that sort of thing.

I have mechanically removed them - with my hands and with a strong hose stream... actually the soapy water seemed most effective because it removed their honeydew too which was getting moldy.

The plants were thriving and in full sun as they are supposed to be. I have been battling these aphids for 2 months now and they just keep coming back - the plants were doing great but are starting to show signs of being stressed now, every few days after I remove all the aphids I can find, they are *covered* in these orange aphids again. I think these plants are just really tasty to the bugs, since there are none at all on all my other plants.

Ladybugs- I got some over a month ago and released them after dark according to the directions, right on the plants. They were active and crawled out onto the plants but the next morning there was not a single ladybug to be seen, and all the aphids were still there.

Spray with soapy water until the plant is white with suds. Wait an hour and rince off. Use a hose end sprayer like the one that comes with spray on fertilizer. Fill it with hand dish washing soap and then spray until the plant is white. Try to get everywhere and spray all infected plants. Repeat every couple of days until they are gone.

Zeuspaul

Those milkweed aphids are really tough, and they seem to reproduce by the bajillions. Fortunately they do have favorite plants and so they don't spread much.

Well I have been doing the soapy water, then blast with hose, manual removal etc - I do get them all off but they kept coming back. BUT I think the heat wave has maybe finished them off... I haven't seen any yesterday or today and it's been about 5 days since I last removed them.

Here's hoping I have won!

And the plants are starting to look better already, so I hope I can keep them improving.

It makes sense that these are milkweed aphids, because the sun parasol has a sticky milky sap like milkweed. I guess they like that stuff.