I thought Marigolds were so resistant to pests that one plants them alongside others as deterrent!
Instead, my dwarf Marigolds have been chawed up; also some Italian Parsley near them. Weird!
Any idea what might be responsible?
TIA
Maybe Rabbits? I have actually seen the rabbits eating my Marigolds. Sue in Mi. Zone 5
snipped-for-privacy@Underworld.com wrote in news:7kv6mv0c1u5750phi0bk5j4vglrhsrr89k@
4ax.com:
Not sure, but I think I heard the dwarf varieties are not as good at repelling stuff.
- S
Ohmygawd - spider mites! That's all I need! I have a (rescued from the alley) ti plant that has spider mites, and I had to buy some bad stuff with which I will treat it and hope for the best.
is no Santa Claus.
Well, I'll get some snail pellets and see if that helps.
Sigh!
Thanks.
I think one of the problems is people expect there to be indestructible, cure-all, amazing plants...there are none and never will be. A hungry animal or insect will eat anything if it has too. Every plant will be eaten or infested by something. Hell, goats can eat arsenic with no problem. Every animal and insect can have a different biology. The goal seems to be to support a natural diversity--more like nature than groomed to be how Man likes it. Insecticides obviously kill fairly indescriminately and don't recognize that you are disrupting a food chain amongst insects.
I was psyched to see butterflys, birds, praying mantis and even a dragonfly in my little garden. I used a store-bought insecticide once and it killed the plant. My home-grown version never did any damage. My one lone hornworm was infected with wasp eggs. I see the little black wasps every now and then and I'm glad I didn't try to kill them off when I saw them favoring a spot under my step.
I planted Dwarf French Marigold (Tagetes patula), caledula(also called Pot marigolds), petunias, nasturtiums, onions & garlic around my biggest garden bed. Not only did it look great as a surrounding border, I believe it did help. I will never know if the Marigolds killed nematodes. But I never saw flying visitors on them much. The Calednula got lots of visitors by contrast (BTW so did my sunflowers, baby's breath, & cosmos). And the two big parsleys surrounded by marigolds were ignored by the egglaying Black Swallowtail butterfly (it flew right over them three times) and it only hit one smaller plant in a pot. My marigolds had no spider mites, but my nasturtiums which grew pressed up against them were covered in aphids (Nasturtiums were said to be a trap crop for aphids). After fighting them back I eventually removed the aphid covered nasturtiums. I had no other aphids in that flower bed. I did have them in my corn-no nasturtiums there.
I had snails in the garden but I think they were mostly eaten by the birds early in the season. I would find lots of empty and broken shells, which confused me until others here pointed out that birds pick them out from the shells. The only serious pest damage I saw was to my Angel's Trumpet. I saw some orange beetles on it and lots of yellow eggs everywhere. Two weeks later I began seeing a praying mantis which would visit my garden rack, my big bed and my landlords tomatoes. SInce then the only annoyance has been Cicada Killer wasps.
DiGiTAL ViNYL (no email) Zone 6b/7, Westchester Co, NY, 1 mile off L.I.Sound
1st Year Gardener
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