I hate that everyone has the aphids so bad, but atleast I'm not doing something to cause them. From all I've read, I guess it's the weather that is leading to them being so bad. With absolutely beautiful sunny warm winter days, comes hungry little green bugs!! Oh well, I still love the weather. I'm just very concerned about having a terrible freeze and it hurting all the trees and plants like it has in the past. Not much I can do about it so I guess I'm going to have to enjoy it and what will be, will be.

We have had rain and more rain the past 2 days. It looks like we are in for another day of rain.

If anyone finds a specific brand at Lowes or Home Depot that works good, please let us know. The Avid is so expensive, I used my liquid 7 Thursday before it rained all night. From what I read on the bottle, it works on contact anyway so it should have worked on all that I "touched" with it Thursday. I'm going to spray again next week.

Blessings and this is a great link. Mona

Betty, I think where I have confused you is thre fact that I have used both of those products. The Tree and Shrub was for my potted plants and areas where I didn't want to spray the good insects, just let the bad ones bite into the plant and die.

The Bayer Advanced Complete Insect Killer (soil & turf) is what I sprayed the daylilies with. It is a systemic and lasts up to 30 days. I sprayed in spring and I don't remember seeing anymore aphids all season until a month or so ago. I did have to spray for spider mites after that though, but I didn't see any aphids so I assume they were already long gone. They have the concentrate that you can mix in your sprayer or you can get the one that attaches to the end of the hose.

If you have the Ortho already and it says it will kill aphids them I would use that first. Go ahead and dump it in your sprayer and spray away. No reason to spend more money if you already have something just as good. Ortho is a good brand.

Mona, most brands of insecticide that you buy at home depot or lowes are all about the same. They may have different ingredients, but they pretty much do the same thing. The only difference is some are systemic and some are contact. I usually go for anything that says it's systemic (lasts 30 days or more / 4 weeks or more) I've used Bayer and Spectracide the most. I quit using the Spectracide because the Bayer is less expensive here.

Michele, thanks so much! I plan to get those millions (or billions!) of little suckers by next weekend at the latest...

Thanks Michele from me too!! I'm still getting a systemic because I want to ward of thrips and that red bug that we talked about last Fall that had ate my buds and killed numerous buds. I don't remember what the silly thing was now, but I do know that it's a goner. You and the rest are all blessings to us beginners. Even though I've had daylilies for 10 years, I'm still a beginner at so many parts of raising daylilies. I guess that's what keeps us all so interested. They change and the enviornment changes and about the time you think you have amassed a really good collection, someone comes out with something else that you've never seen. It's so much fun.

Oh yes, do you ever mix the bug spray with liquid Miracle Grow type fertilizer?

Thanks Mona

Mona, I'm a beginner as well. I've only had daylilies since 2009. I asked tons of questions last year and most of what I know is by asking or by doing a lot of reading on the Internet. Other stuff is by trial and error.

Yes, I mix all of my chemicals together at one time, so yes, I mix in my fertilizer with the insecticides. Another thing you can do is squirt a little bit of dish soap in the sprayer (after water is added or it will suds up) with the insecticide to help it adhere to the foliage. Dish soap is so much cheaper than a spreader/sticker.

Mona, I tried to find the thread were you posted about the red bug but couldn't find it. I believe it was called a seed bug / true bug.

I use the dish soap a lot on aphids-mites and fungus gnats and mix it with Miracle Grow with no problems. I would like to add the Dish Soap I am told should not be the Anti-Bacterial as it can damage natural Bacteria the plants need in the soil.

Michele, I just bought the generic Avid from Ebay and got free shipping. Thanks to you and others we are now all armed with the information we need to grow our daylilies free of aphids, thrips, spidermites, leafminers, and a long list of other insects and mites. I read the two links to Bill's blog which were also helpful, and I had read previously. I will find out from him (Bill Waldrop) Sunday exactly when and how often he sprays outside since we live about 30 miles from him. Don and Nancy Eller (from South Ga.) will be the guest speakers/hybridizers at our meeting, so I am sure they will be sharing this information with us, too.

Doris

Mona, this link goes to the AHS page on this insect. I believe this is the red bug you had talked about before. http://www.daylilies.org/ahs_d...

Yes, that's it. It caused a lot of damage in one area of my garden before I realized what was happening. I had these bugs before, but only a few and they really didn't hurt anything but just a few buds. So I left them alone. But last year was a bumper year for them. They caused several of really big clumps that are in the ground to abord most buds and the ones that did bloom where deformed. So, I had to spray. This year, they will not be invited back into my garden. I'm sorry, but they must not be allowed to have that much fun!!!!

Thanks Michele for finding them again. Now I'll know where to look for them at the AHS if I need to tell someone else about them.

Blessings, Mona