Aphids - A Rose Garden Pest   by Charles Thomas

in Home / Gardening    (submitted 2011-03-16)

Parasites have a unique and brutal way of killing their prey. In both hairy animals and human beings, lice infect host creatures by slowly sucking the life essence out of them. Not surprisingly, plants also have parasites that slowly feed on them the same way animals and human beings are being pestered.
Aphids are also known as plant lice. In the United Kingdom and other British-accented Commonwealth territories, aphids are known as green lice. The scientific name of the notorious breed that feeds on rose plants is the Macrosiphum rosae. They are small insects, just about a little smaller than ants, which live on sucking the juices out of the plants. They are likely to be spotted on buds and shoots. These creatures are approximately 1 to 2 millimeters long. Their appearance is usually of colors light brown or green but they have a translucent gleam on their bodies.
The thing made these aphids so terrible a type of pest for the rose plant and all other plants is that they come in huge waves of their own armies. Even more irritating on top of that is, these aphids sometimes reproduce asexually. Therefore, they have a faster and more astonishing rate of multiplication of their numbers. In small numbers, they seem quite benign but when their population bolstered to an enormous degree, they have the capacity to overwhelm a bud and completely take out the nourishment on it, retarding the growth of rose plants and ruining the buds in the process. They are active around spring and summer, multiplying their numbers into extraordinary rates. They are usually found within temperate climates.
The notoriety of aphids has reached historically cataclysmic proportions. During the 1840’s food crisis in Ireland, which is known today as the Irish Potato Famine, it was believed that aphids contributed a great deal from that calamity and are partly responsible for the spread of late blight infesting the crops. But bizarrely enough, these aphids are indirectly being used as treatment in China. According to the guidelines of the exotic and somewhat controversial Chinese medicine, the galls in plant trees created by the aphids could treat coughs, diarrhea, night sweats, and dysentery and is capable of stopping intestinal and uterine bleeding.
But needless to say, no matter how influential their existence is among humans, they are nothing but a threat to fragile plants such as the roses. One can contain the infestation of these aphids by spraying insecticides. There are various insecticides available and some of the varieties today include the ones that are thought to be environmentally friendly. The most natural and environmentally friendly product would be neem oil, which is also used to kill large pests such as the Japanese beetles.

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