Asian Citrus Psyllid: a Hitchhiking Pest
International air travel is a wonderful thing, especially if you happen to be an insect. Just ask the Asian citrus psyllid. Thanks to hitching free rides on airplanes, where it typically stows away...
Category Archives: Insect Pests
Whitefly Combat
If you happen to have a persistently annoying insect pest in your garden, doing absolutely nothing about it may be the best form of managing its spread long term. In due course, natural predators ...
Flowerless Anthurium and Buggy Eugenia
I have been puzzled as to why one of my Anthurium plants will not bloom! I have one that puts out so many “flowers” and is beautiful. They are a light pink color. The other one had red...
Controlling Ants Without Pesticides
Are there ants in your plants? Although ants do not, by themselves, eat or disfigure plants in any way, they create problems through their sap-sucking insect agents. In hot, dry weather, ants come ou...
Beware of African Bees in the Garden
As if we did not have enough potential attackers to worry about, Africanized honey bees (those so-called killer bees) have arrived in Los Angeles gardens. Actually, they have been in our area for sev...
Are There Ants in Your Plants?
Are there ants in your plants? Although ants do not, by themselves, eat or disfigure plants in any way, they create problems through their sap-sucking insect agents. In hot, dry weather, ants come ou...
Sucking Insect Attack
Rain in May is not unheard of in the Valley, so the effects of last weekend’s downpour on local gardens are somewhat predictable based on late rains of years gone by. May rain extends the flowe...
Honey Bees and China Dolls
Judy Rosen lives in the Sherwood Forest area of Northridge with one duck, six hens, 50,000 honey bees and a collection of exotic plants that cause discriminating botanists to cluck and buzz with deli...
What Happened to Honey Bees?
If your plum tree gave fewer plums than expected these last few years and if your zucchini squash have not been as abundant in recent summers as they should have been, it’s probably not your fa...
Spiders Eat Pests and Each Other
As much as earthworms are evidence of fertile, well-aerated soil, spiders are a sign of ongoing pest control in the garden. Spiders provide an around- the-clock security service that puts the clamps ...
