Blushing bride

[turtlemike]

Blushing bride

[Esther]

That is cool too. I like the white shading into the pale pink. It seems to be standing above the water too.

[Julles]

Is that the name of the lily?  Pretty flower, pretty name.

[turtlemike]

I wish that I had gotten more of the reflection of the lily in that picture.    Also that is not one of my seedlings it is a Perry Slocum hybrid and blushing bride is its name.

[Lily]

Really nice picture.  I sell alot of the blushing bride.  Its a really pretty and larger lily.  It looks like your leaves are getting ate by something.  I'll give you a good natural mixture to spray on your plants that will kill aphids, small bugs etc. and won't harm any fish, frogs or plants.  1 TBL liquid dish soap with 1 cup oil.  Put this in a jar and when you use it put it in a spray bottle with 1 tsp to one qt of water.  Works great.  Just a suggestion.  You don't have to worry about the oil because its not much when added with the water and won't harm anything.

Lily
www.dragonflyaquatics.com

[turtlemike]

Wow, thanks a lot Lily, Those holes are caused by waterlily beetles.   I cant remember exactly what there called cause I haven't been into the books for a while.   there a dark silvery gray and black and they eat holes through the leaves and lay eggs on the bottom of the leaves through the holes.  Blushing Bride makes new leaves so slowly that there is a slow turnover of new leaves to replace old bug eaten ones.    My main problem is china mark moth.   this year I'm burning the grass and spike rush etc. down to the ice in order to kill overwintering moths hopefully that will help.   Another thing I'm doing is putting lots of bluebird and  fly catcher nests around the ponds.      I see flycatchers swooping low over the water eating these beetles and moths in summer.           I have 2 questions about your spray mixture.   Regular or ultra dish soap? And what kind of oil and will vegetable oil work?  I guess that's 3 questions.     That spray will come in handy in the greenhouse to kill aphids.           Thanks.        Mike.

[Lily]

Regular dishsoap, veg oil is fine.  It might even help with the waterlily beetles. I had them also until I starting using this spray.  They may not like the oil either.  I try different things as I try to stay away from chemicals and it seems alot of my customers want other ideas instead of chemicals also.  Lily

[Desertponder]

Beautiful. That is one I've had on my wish list for awhile now.

[marla]

Yep Shanna on mine to along with Gonnere and Mayla, hoping to get all this year.
Lily thanks for the pesticide info.

[Craig]

A word of caution on the oil and soap....it can be phytotoxic and you'll burn the heck out of most plants if you do it in sunlight; it is best done at dusk, dawn or an overcast day.  It will burn some just on GP no matter when you spray.

There are products with out there designed to do the same thing, only better.  They contain potassium salts of fatty acids and more than just coating the pest and essentially smothering it, they also penetrate the exoskeleton and disrupt the cellular activity.  I use m-pede (which also has anti-fungal properties), but Safer Soap is probably the better known one, it isn't listed as a fungicide.  My cost per gallon of spray works out to less than .20, so I get a better designed product than veg oil or pam and still not a drain on the wallet.  Here again...the time of spraying is important or you get phytoxicity.

Another reason for their use when there is no sun is that they are only effective when wet, so sunlight can both result in burn and mitigate the activity of the spray.

[marla]

Thanks for the info Craig, I'll have to save that post.