As we are nearing Halloween it seems appropriate to find the Halloween Pennant Dragonfly flying around my garden. Although this type of dragonfly is seen year round in Florida and the Genus Celuthemis (Pennants) is the most common, it is my first meeting with the Species Epinina (Halloween Pennant).

In the photograph below which I captured whilst he rested on a branch of our purple leaf plum above our pond, you can clearly seen the very distinct markings that allow identification.  

Halloween Pennant Dragonfly

Find more information on my dragonfly species Celithemis Epinoma - Halloween Pennant at the Bug Guide 

or

at the Northern Prairie Willife Research Center you can see the confirmed recordings and sitings of all dragonflies and damselflies identified by species, the link takes you to the page for my Halloween Pennant Dragonfly.

* Consider Reading - Things That Make Ponds Great

I’m sure most of us have been out digging in our soil and come upon a large, white, fat worm. This is a grub. A grub is the larval stage of a beetle. So do these grubs cause a problem for our yards?

Here in Hillsborough County grubs are not really too great a problem. They are mostly a problem concerning the destruction of your yard by a digging armadillo (they love to dig around to get the yummy grub morsel). But as for destroying your lawn, or garden, if you had this problem at the hands of grubs, you would be one of the few. I was told that in Apollo Beach some yards have been greatly effected by grub damage.

My recommendation to control this insect, and really all insects in your yard, is to practice "IPM — Integrated Pest Management." It is defined as: A pest management strategy that focuses on methods that are least injurious to the environment. Pesticides are applied in such a way that they pose the least possible hazard, and are used as a ‘last resort’ when other controls are inadequate.

For me that means I do not immediately get out the chemicals, but instead, decide the amount of damage I feel is non-threatening to my yard, and only after that, develop a course of action. I only use chemicals as a last resort.

If I did have a large grub problem that needed an insecticide, I would go with a good grub granular product such as "Bayer Advanced 24-Hour Grub Control." There are several on the market with the main ingredient being "trichlorfon." Trichlorfon is toxic to target insects through direct applications and via ingestion. It works both by contact and stomach poison action. For that reason alone I would never use it around butterfly plants. If your caterpillars have to crawl along the ground to seek a place to form their chrysalis, they could be killed.

I would only treat (put down an insecticide) for grubs if my entire yard was being torn up by armadillos, or being eaten alive (which is not likely here in Central Florida). And I would never, put any grub chemical in my Butterfly Garden.

I always remember this gardening thought, "When we kill off the natural enemies of a pest. We inherit their work!" by C. B. Huffaker.

For further information go to:

(Photo: Grub)

While good gardening practices will fend off many diseases, you can’t always prevent a disease from attacking your garden plants.
 
To help keep plant problems under control, I suggest considering the 5 tips below:-
 
Buy Disease-Resistant Plants – Always read the labels/tags. Vegetable seed packets are labeled to indicate the particular plant’s disease resistance. Plants, shrubs and trees are also tagged which should include this relevant information.
 
Transplant with Care – This will minimize root damage. When they are broken, roots become susceptible to certain soil born diseases.

Install a Drip Irrigation System – This can minimize the splashing water that can spread water-borne pathogens around your garden.
 
Prevent Plant Injuries – An open wound on a plant stem or tree trunk readily admits bacteria and fungi. Maintain your plants in health for example with the Deadhead Ritual to prevent disease potential.
 
Remove Diseased Plants – If certain plants are constantly afflicted by disease, remove them from your garden and replace them. This solution is simpler than trying to control the disease and it eliminates the source of further infection.
 
Check out Grasshopper's Spider Flower post and follow his investigations to why this plant had problems. 

Read Peg's Post detailing Scale Insects in Florida
 
And also, consider Darry D's advice in his post Pay Attention to Symptoms.
 

I hope you find these 5 Tips useful and can incorporate them easily into your gardening.

When you see some insect attacking your favorite plant, don’t immediately reach for an insecticide.

First, make sure you know that the insect is the one that is creating the destruction. "Less than 1/10 of 1% of insects are pests," according to Master Gardener Sydney Park Brown, Ph.D., of the University of Florida.

The second step is to identify the insect. Do your best to identify the insect. The Hillsborough Extension Service provides a hot line to help you do just that. Call 813.744.5519 from 8 AM to 5 PM, Monday – Friday, and speak with a Master Gardener.

Let’s say you are dealing with aphids. See the photo.

According to the University of Florida’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, "Aphids or ‘plant lice’ may infest almost any plant. They are more commonly found on camellia, crape-myrtle, gardenia, hibiscus, ixora, oleander, palm, rose, as well as nearly all annual plants. Aphids have piercing-sucking mouthparts and cause damage by sucking the plant juices. However, their ability to transmit plant viruses may be more harmful than any direct feeding damage.

"Aphids are soft bodied pear-shaped insects generally less than 1/8-inch long and usually green, but many are black, brown, pink, yellow, blue, or white. Most aphids are wingless but when colonies become overcrowded or the host plant becomes undesirable, winged forms are produced which establish new colonies. The insects are commonly found in small colonies on the stems or undersides of young leaves."

Be on the lookout for beneficial insects. "Examples of aphid predators are lady beetles, praying mantids, assassin bugs, ambush bugs, and aphid lions. Spiders also prey on numerous insect pests. If predators are present or the pests show signs of parasitism, every effort should be made to preserve the beneficial insects. Delay applying a pesticide until damage appears, and provide the beneficials an opportunity to control the pest populations."

Mix 2-3 teaspoons of dishwashing liquid together with 2-3 teaspoons of liquid cooking oil and use a hose-end sprayer, you’ll create an insect repellant that works. This insect preparation will give aphids diarrhea causing them to move to another plant.

Cover the undersides of the leaves and all parts of the twigs thoroughly.

When the insect penetrates the leave, this mixture will cause it to have diarrhea and leave that plant alone. If you’ve treated all the nearby plants, the aphids will leave your garden.

Continue to examine your plants periodically — especially new growth — and apply an insecticide if plants become re-infested.

Cleome hassleriana, or Spider Flower was a fantastic bloomer in our garden until.  It struggled a little bit with this years frost but came roaring back.  That is until it suddenly started wilting and looking rather tattered.  Some parts of it actually began to look like spiders were nesting in it.  As you can see it was looking pretty bad. 

We weren't sure what was causing the problem.  We knew it wasn't water (too much or too little) as you can see from this photo the plant looks remarkably healthy on the rest of the stem.  In fact the phenomenom seemed to be starting from the top and working it's way down.  I'm not really a treat first and ask questions later kind of gardener so I decided to take a few cuttings of the plant down to the County Extension office to have a look at some of the damage on the microscope.

The first pest we noticed was thrip.  These guys had done us in before and I should have recognized them sooner, but that wasn't the only thing eating our plants.  In fact, my suspicions were that the something else wounded the plant enough that the thrip were able to come in and establish themselves with very little resistance from the plant.

So what was this 'other' pest?  Well in general terms it's a moth.  Because there is such a huge variety of moths (most of them unstudied) it's nearly impossible to tell.  I call this one, "Likes to eat spider flower".  It had hatched outside the plant on the stem, then burrowed it's way into the plant, covering the entrance with a sticky excretion that made the plant look as though spiders had made their nest there.  It wasn't until we scraped away the messy substance that we found the wound.  Then we split the stem and there it was.

Upon returning home, I examined all of our spider plants.  Sure enough, they were all showing signs of the intrusion.  So what's a gardener to do in this case.  My response was to remove all the spider plants.  While it may seem a waste, I clearly was not going to be able to save these plants without massive chemical intervention and that's not really an option for me.  Rather than have the plant stay in my garden attracting more and more pests, I'd rather have the space to plant some other Florida Friendly plant that is pest tolerant as well.

You can see the entire slideshow below.  Click on the images to see them at a larger scale.

Mosquitoes are the bane of my life; I think I must be Number 1 on the Mosquito Mafia Hit List!

The very mention of the name mosquito is an irritation to me as somehow when they are around I always feel the need to scratch!

Whilst researching ideas for blogposts yesterday, I came across an article from the July 2009 Issue of the In the Field Magazine; apparently Hillsborough County recently celebrated Mosquito Control Awareness Week. Part of its focus was to educate residents on how to prevent mosquitoes from breeding around their home and feeding on them.

As, I’m sure I’m not the only gardener to think them a blight to my life in the garden, especially at dusk and twilight, I thought I'd share a condensed version of the information given there with you.

Thirsty for Blood - Tips for Controlling Mosquitoes in the Summertime

• Get rid of mosquito breeding containers. (Anything that contains and holds water – tires, buckets, unused plant pots.)

• Prevent your swimming pool from becoming a breeding ground. (Cover when not in use and prevent areas of sag which could become a breeding ground.)

• If you have bromeliad plants in your yard, regularly rinse them out with a garden hose. (Bromeliads are an excellent host for larvae.)

• Protect your children from mosquitoes especially at night. (Using an insect repellant, please read the label before use.)

• Keep your gutters cleaned out. (Blocked drains impede the flow of water and become an ideal habitat for larvae.)

• Take special precautions at dusk. Dusk is a mosquito’s favorite time to fly and to bite! (Long sleeves and an insect repellent, also the mosquitoes aren’t strong fliers so if you don’t have a good off shore breeze try a fan.)

• Take special precautions in high mosquito areas. (If you venture into the salt marshes or everglades at night wear protective clothing, head nets, long sleeve clothing and long pants. Also, ensure application of a repellent especially on exposed skin.)

• Be careful when a warning is in effect. (If there is a mosquito borne disease warning, stay inside during dawn and dusk when the mosquitoes are most active.)

• Make sure window and door screens are ‘Bug Tight.’ (Check and repair any holes or tears in your linea screening.)

• Watch out for puddles in your gardens or yard. (Irrigate to prevent standing water.)

THEN...

If you have tried all these tips and still have problems with mosquito control in Hillsborough County you can call the Public Works Customer Service Number: - 813 635 5400 to request Service. Last year 2008, they dealt with 5,480 Customer Requests, distributed larvacide over more than 14,000 acres, adulticided more than 23,000 acres and treated more than 550 acres of aquatic floating vegetation that harbored mosquito larvae. 

Somehow, I think whatever precaution I take they’ll still get me!

For the full article see the - In the Field July 2009 Magazine.

For more info:- http://mosquito.ifas.ufl.edu/ 

This will be my last post on this subject for a while, but I did want to follow up on a couple of things that I left open in my last post.  The first, is that the treatment works.  After my second treatment the lace worms disappeared from the pond for a few weeks.  This despite another rain storm passing through the area only days after application.  In fact I'm beginning to believe that the application of diatomaceous earth in my pond is in fact a rain potion. :) 

After three weeks of no lace worms I noticed a couple of leaf folds indicative of their return.  So I decided to reapply the diatomaceous earth again.  This time I tried my wife's tea strainer to do the application, thereby answering the second item I said I would follow up with.  The good news is that it works.  It's very effective when moving the strainer gently side to side allowing the earth to sift through.  The holes are a bit larger than a flour sifter so you have to do it very gently or it comes out in a rush.

In terms of the lace worm returning.  I suspect that if I were able to have my diatomaceous earth application last for more than a day without a passing rain shower washing it off, it'd be much more effective.

The UF Entomologist in Gainesville FL, has sent us these results with regard my previous 2 articles:-
HELP! Does anyone know who this bug is? and
Who is this Bug? Identity Saga Continues

And as a reminder here are the picures:-

Who is this bug?

The Entomologists comments said:- I checked with a Caterpillar Specialist, but we can't determine the species from these pictures because it is a prepupa and no longer has the colors of the larva.

His best guess was Manduca Rustica. That species typically burrows several inches into the soil to pupate.

Thus we have:-

Common Name:- Rustic Sphinx
Scientific Name:- Manduca Rustica
Family 1: Sphingidae

Confidence Level of Specialist:-
Genus:- Inconclusive
Species:- Inconclusive

Is this an invasive species? No

The Entomologist also said:- ‘Please let me know if you rear out the adult!’ So, continue to watch this space and if I see anything happening in the plant pot I’ll update again.

In the meantime follow these links to see some picture of the Rustic Hawkmoth:-
http://www.butterfliesandmoths.org/species?l=3365
 
Another page with a really cool photo...
http://www.forestryimages.org/browse/detail.cfm?imgnum=1274048
 
Would you ever have guessed the adult would be so beautiful and have such camoflage?

You will remember my post:- HELP! Does anyone know who this bug is?

The photographs that I had taken had been forwarded onto the UF Entomologist in Gainesville to help establish his identity. Well, the resultant answer was that: - it is a sphinx moth caterpillar, but it appears to be a prepupa, which doesn't have quite the same color patterns as the regular larva would. They expect that it will pupate in the soil, and then the adult will emerge in maybe 3 weeks or so.  

But as it is not seen with the regular color patterns, they have forwarded on again my photographs and their findings to a Caterpillar Specialist for further analysis.  

As a reminder of what he looks like, here again for you to view are the photographs I took. 

Who is this bug? 

So once again, watch this space for an update. As soon as hear I’ll post again.

Last week, when I wrote about the pests we were having in our pond (see Part I), I didn't really want to buy a 10lb bag of diatomaceous earth.  My thoughts were, "I won't have to do that many rounds to get rid of these guys", and "They won't come back when I've got them this time".  Ok, so maybe I was a little bit delusional on that second one, but we han't had them until this year, so...

What I wasn't counting on was Mother Nature working against me.  Two days after my first application of diatomaceous earth we got a storm.  It was a bad one too.  Since I don't watch TV I wasn't sure if we had a tropical storm give us a buzz or what.  The winds were so strong a couple of my plants will have to be reset as they are now leaning.  So I made another application and guess what.  Yep more rain minus the wind.  Please don't think that I'm complaining, because I'm not.  Here in Florida we've been in a severe drought for several years now, and if me applying diatomaceous earth to my water lilies is what it takes to make it rain, I'll do it everyday!  I'm just glad I got the 10lb bag afterall.

The other part that I want to share is about the application itself.  It turns out that trying to 'dust' the plants with a spoon while walking knee deep in the pond on gravel is more dificult than it looks.  Now I'm looking for an old fashioned flour sifter to do the job.  My wife has offered her tea strainer for the experiment but I'm not sure if the holes will be too big.  Stay tuned.