Your gardening questions answered: Aphids have ravaged my trees, should I get pruning?
23.09.2023 - 04:17
/ irishtimes.com
/ Fionnuala Fallon
Q: A honeysuckle and an elder tree in the garden have been ravaged by aphids. I was hoping natural predators might have a feast but there’s no let up so far. Is it a seasonal occurrence due to spring weather conditions or should I get pruning? JMcK, Co Dublin
Also commonly known as greenfly and blackfly, aphids can be found in most Irish gardens at some stage during the growing season. These sap-sucking insects like to feed from the juicy sap of plants, often quickly forming large colonies along affected branches and leaf tips, which they then cover with their sticky excretion known as honeydew.
Rather than referring to a specific species, the word “aphid” is an umbrella term, that refers to a wide variety of different species, some of which are quite specific in terms of the species of plant that they feed on (for example, the woolly beach aphid, which feeds on the leaves of beech trees and hedges) while others are less discriminating. Some species of plants are also more susceptible to attack than others. Unfortunately, honeysuckle (Lonicera) and elder (Sambucus) are among the former.
[ Your gardening questions answered: What is my mystery plant? ]
Although they’re part of the natural ecosystem of a garden and are often naturally kept in control by predators such as ladybirds, hoverflies, earwigs and parasitoid wasps, sustained infestations, like those seen on your honeysuckle and elder tree, can eventually weaken afflicted plants and cause distortion and damage to the leaves and flowers. Aphids are also sometimes a vector for destructive plant viruses, which they pass on by feeding on plant tissue.
My suggestion is to take a multipronged approach to their control. Aphids overwinter as eggs on the affected
The website diygarden.cc is an aggregator of news from open sources. The source is indicated at the beginning and at the end of the announcement. You can
send a complaint on the news if you find it unreliable.