I have to admire the tenacity of anyone gardening in Florida. I lived there and there are so many bugs to contend with, let alone the heat and humidity. To add to those existing problems they now have idiots importing those destructive and disease ridden snails.......As to leaf miners. The pest that drives me the battiest and has for many, many years is spider mites. I had tried all the chemicals available at the time and all the non chemical treatments also. Nothing worked until they introduced AVID. It's been around now for awhile, and it has been a real solution for spider mites. What the connection is with the question, is that it was originally forumulated to deal with Leaf Miners in Columbines in green house culture. The chemical had a side benefit of eliminating adult spider mites as well. It is translaminar by nature, which means it penetrates through the leaf structure from top to bottom. Easier to spray as you don't have to try and get the underside of the leaves. It is also less harmful to beneficial insects as it is more target specific. No pesticide comes without a price and that price is that AVID, used consistantly, can easily build up a resistance in the pests. Rose growers who used it as a preventative and included it in every spraying, soon found it's effectiveness had evaporated. In order not to do that you should only use it when the pest is present and destructive enough to warrent intervention. You spray Avid on a one week, one week, two weeks rotation. Then you stop. I had a horrible infestation of spider mites on my daylilies (and roses too) this spring because of our warm winter, and ended up having to use it for two complete rotations in order to get control. No more was needed the rest of the year. While I was at it I sprayed for leafminers on my Columbines. AVID may not be necessary in a mild infestation of leaf miners, but I thought you ought to know at least a product that was specifically designed to deal with the problem........Maryl
