After
spying aphids on my red elderberry, I took my nozzled hose to blast them with a
merciless torrent of water. As I was
making sure to aim at the underside of the leaves, our Legislature and Governor
came to mind. The aphids had attacked
the tender new leaves, not from the top of the leaves where they can easily be
seen, but on the underside, hidden from the eye. A Superior Court in Phoenix
had just ordered the Legislature and Governor to pay revenue to the public
schools in Arizona
The
aphids were covertly attacking my red elderberry at its new growth, certainly trying
to stunt it and eventually even destroy it.
By taking money the voters had taxed themselves for education and
siphoning it off for their pet projects, the Legislature and the Governor were
stunting the growing edge of our society, the public schools, by sucking the
sap of education. They’ve been engaged
in such shenanigans for a long time, gradually reducing support for our three
universities and community colleges, slowing sucking the sap from the new
growth of our society.
As
with aphids, they hide on the underside to suck away at the juices of
society. Finding aphids on one’s plants,
bushes, trees leads to a feeling of an impotent rage at these parasites who are
surreptitiously trying to destroy a garden.
If the aphids get the upperhand, then a garden’s future is dismal.
If
repeated and frequent blasts of water don’t work, then insecticidal soap is the
ammunition to use. Just spraying the
infected plants won’t do. One has to get
down and spray upward to get the underside of the leaves. More often than not, the gardener gets a good
soaking, too. A little soap never hurt
anyone. This is one reason not to use a
poisonous spray for fear of afflicting oneself.
The other reason is that it’s not too bright to use poison because it
kills everything, the good and the bad.
Also, it’s best in a fight never to become that which one despises. The aim is to get at the underhanded and
hidden, one might even say, the closeted malaise in the garden.
One
of the disquieting aspects of gardening is that the battle against aphids and
white flies is never over. As in defense
of our freedom, one must be eternally vigilant.
Sad but true, gardeners must always be on the prowl to check out the
undersides of their gardens if they want to enjoy their beauty and bounty. In gardening as in politics, it pays to
snoop.
We
have friends in this battle of the undersides, lady bugs and green lacewings,
to name a few. Lady bugs, which
incidentally were named after the Virgin Mary, can be purchased at commercial
nurseries and let loose in the evenings to devour both the aphids and white
flies. Happily, both the lady bug itself
and its larvae find aphids and white flies particularly tasty.
Green lacewings can be
purchased either as larvae or as mature insects and hung out in the garden to
destroy aphids and white flies.
Generally, they are sold in thousand insect lots.
Also,
an astute move is to develop gardens friendly to ladybugs and green
lacewings. Dill, yellow yarrow,
coriander, cosmos, and Queen Anne’s lace are a few of the plants favored by
both of them. To the contrary, zinnias
and nasturtiums are seemingly offensive to the aphids and white flies.
Sometimes,
gardeners and citizens lose a skirmish, but that’s no reason to give up the
battle. Particularly in household
plants, a white fly infestation in dangerous because unless thwarted they can
take over the whole house. If a plant is
badly infected, the best thing to do is throw it out encased in a plastic bag
and put in the garbage can and sent to Environmental Services. As with all things, it’s important to know
when to keep and when to throw out.
Copyright
© Dana Prom Smith 2014
Dana Prom Smith and Freddi Steele edit Gardening Etcetera for the Arizona
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