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Although it's unsightly I tend to leave them to it. But I only seem to get them on my runner bean leaves and not any flowers.
I also destroy any ant nests I find. I know it's not very friendly but when they take over the world you'll regret not doing it too. -
I don't know how effective it is but yes mild soap solution seems to be the thing. What I find fairly effective is to just go around squishing the things with your fingers. It's not very pleasant and bruises the leaves a bit but the bugs are soft. Then spray down with soap solution. They breed incredibly fast and you won't get them all in one go but do it every few days for a bit and it massively improves the situation. I haven't seen many ladybirds this year either :(
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I've just ordered some horticultural liquid soap (natural stuff) which I plan to water down then spray on the aphids.
Got some of this stuff and yeah, it seems to work a treat although it also seems to have damaged the leaves on a chilli plant we have. Not that the plant seems to mind much.
The only ladybird I've seen this year was well-fried and inside some takeaway rice but apparently it's the larvae that are masters at munching aphids anyway.
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Tomo187
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@Fox
Does anyone have any aphid removal tips?
We have a rather lovely pineapple broom tree in our garden which Dropout kindly gave us.
It's done very well and is much bigger than it was, but in the last week or so it's been hit by a bad blackfly infestation. It turns out that - rather disgustingly - the ants in our garden are farming the aphids for their honeydew, which I didn't even know was a thing. Ew.
I don't want to use nasty chemicals so have been blasting them off with a high pressure hose, but that doesn't get rid of the baby ones stuck under the leaves and in the flowers. So I've just ordered some horticultural liquid soap (natural stuff) which I plan to water down then spray on the aphids.
Apparently this will destroy their natural waxy coatings and they will dehydrate and die. Will this work? Any other tips?