For a lot of pests, esp inside a greenhouse or house, i like 1/2 rubbing alcohol, mixed with 1/2 water, a couple drops of dishsoap and a healthy squirt (maybe 1/2 tsp) of hot sauce in a hand held spray bottle. Just be really careful to set the sprayer on squirt, NOT mist or it'll drift and get in your eyes, nose, ect. And it hurts!!

For serious outdoor pests (scale, white fly & others that are persistent and hard to kill), i like using hort/summer oil. Seems to get even the hard to kill ones. I just don't like mixing up stuff for the big sprayer. Pure laziness, b/c it really isn't hard. Bt works great for 'pillars on things- but i'm normally too lazy and will cover coles with row cover or pick off hornworms by hand on maters/peppers. DE works great for slugs but it has to be reapplied after every rain so i don't bother except in the cool greenhouse where i control the rain and they do more damage. I don't do anything but a hose for aphids- about the time they get bad, lady bugs show up. I find that if i just let things be, the birds, bats, toads and beneficial insects do most of the work for me.

My favorite JB trick is to cut off the top of a milk jug, fill with warm soapy water and knock them into the water by hand. Since it's so big you can sneak it under them & knock off whole orgies of them. If there isn't enough soap and they aren't dying fast, let it sit in the sun. Do it early or late or they'll just fly away.

Hi,

I fought orchid pests indoors for a long time and the most effective seemed to be a combination of neem oil/soap in water judiciously sprayed on affected plants and the putting of the plants outdoors in summer to let the spiders and other insect predators do their thing. I also found that repotting every year without fail kept pests from going from year to year in the potting mix. Using a fan in the area also helped with thrips and other things like that so long as I could keep relative humidity high enough, over 50 p.c.

Outdoors, nothing works better IMO than encouraging predator insects. From wasps to lady bugs to praying mantisses and snakes, you can enlist an army of helpers by providing 1) diverse plantings of nectar producing flowers, 2) host plants known to attract beneficial insects, and 3) a source of water and shelter for frogs and other critters to use.

Japanese beetles were really bad here because of an old tree that good denuded each year. It was some type of dark leaf cherry tree. Moles would come after the grubs and make a huge mess. Nothing worked, not even milky spore. So I cut down the tree and replaced with a Prunus mume and voila, problem solved. Sometimes you have to observe and replace things rather than fight momma nature IMHO.

After 10 years I am happy to report I use no chemicals or pest controls of any kind. I live with a little black spot and rust but that's it. Keeping planting well spaced and diverse, with good airflow helps a lot. But probably avoiding problem prone cultivars is the most important thing which means I don't use tea roses at all.

YMMV but I think using pest control gets to be too much of a chore to keep up and for every measure you come up with the bugs come with a counter measure.

RJ

Lots of useful information, as always. I think the biggest issues I have at present are the aphids, spider mites, and the ants gathering to eat the aphids. The brugs and cosmos are generally the worst with aphids and spider mites (oh and earwigs ug). I had heard about the alcohol and water for spider mites (for my house and greenhouse plants as well) but was worried about how the alcohol would affect the foliage. I suppose if you have used it with no ill effects that it is worth a try. The JBs have not been too bad and seem to gather on only certain things. Last year I had a handful that only attacked the cannas. The year before that I think it was a pothos (?) they gathered on. I let them have at it just to keep them from going and eating anything else.

We have a good amount of ladybugs that hang out but I have yet to see a praying mantis. I thought about ordering some then thought, well, what if the environment doesn't support them at this time. I certainly don't want to sentence anything to certain death.

We do have snakes, tons of birds, and bats. We set up a very small pond and are seeing more frogs hanging out and they particularly like the water barrels!

Okay.. it is nice and dry and sunny so outside I go. Thank you again for the feedback!