RE: [CH] Companion planting to fight aphids
Gillian A. Parsons. (gillp@oysters.freeserve.co.uk)
Thu, 7 Dec 2000 19:10:09 -0000
Hi Chad,
You are obviously talking about the American equivalent of our bindweed - Calystegia sepium (an introduced perennial) which smothers everything with which it comes into contact.
Being an organic grower it pains me to say that there is only one cure and that is chemical..... a glyphosate-based systemic weedkiller. Don't spray but spot target the vine. Mix the weedkiller to the consitency proscribed by the makers and put it into a long, narrow, preserve/jam jar (clearly labelled!). Put as much of the growing tip of the vine into the jar of mix as you can without breaking the main stem; leave overnight to saturate. The plant will then start to die back. Repeat the process on as many tendrils as you can and you can greatly weaken the vines.
Don't, whatever you do, try to dig it up; it has an inbuilt survival programme which causes it to shatter when under stress and produce many more small viable pieces of vine.
Hope this helps
Gill
(Now doing penance for blaspheming with chemicals.......)
There is no attachment in this letter and I am not sending one separately without a heading.
-----Original Message-----
From: Chad A Gard [SMTP:gard@indy.net]
Sent: 06 December 2000 21:06
To: raincrone@juno.com; chile-heads@globalgarden.com
Subject: Re: [CH] Companion planting to fight aphids
>I don't know what kinds you're growing that are this unmanageable, or
>where you live, but I've never had a problem with my hybrid types, mainly
>Heavenly Blues and Pearly Gates, as opposed to the wild ones (and I
>confess, I like even those.)
Mine would be of the "gee, they weren't there last year and I never planted
them" variety. White ones.
True, you have to train 'em a bit, but
>that's as simple as making sure they have something sturdy to climb on
>and then periodically taking any wandering tendrils and draping 'em back
>over that.
Train them? Like you'd train a great white, right?
>Gawds, why fight 'em?!? They're gorgeous. If you have something that
>pretty that _wants_ to decorate the front of your house, why
>on earth not let it?
They're pretty when they're flowering, that's true. But they tend to make
windows hard to open, grow into screens, smother my verigated ivy. They've
overtaken the gutters, begun removing shutters, and grown into the window
glazing on the top half of my windows. And that's just the second floor.
Closer to ground, they've wraped themselves tightly arround anything thorny
(so much so that I just removed the rose bushes in favor of something
without thorns), anialated my sage, shaded my oregano to death, are rapidly
overpowering my rosemary, and putting up a good fight against my holly
bush. They love to entangle in the outdoor faucet, and once I left my car
in the driveway (10's of feet from the nearest visible strand) for a week
when I was out of town. When I arrived home, a strand had descended from
the 150 year old oak tree it's rapidly smothering and wrapped itself
arround 4 of my antennas (I'm a ham radio operator and storm chaser). The
stuff is evil, evil I tell you! And they don't flower prolifically like
the more well-behaved ones I see from time to time (usually only 5 or 6
flowers on the front of the house at a time) - but I think the nature of
morning glories must be evil, and the well-behaved ones are just waiting
until their keeper is otherwise detained for a couple of weeks so they can
take over the neighborhood. I keep an electric hedge trimmer inside my
house, just in case they get a shot of nitrogen and decide to lock me in.
My neighbor (I live in a duplex) does the same.
Chad Gard, CTS KB9WXQ
INCHASE: http://www.inchase.org Co-founder
SCOA: http://www.stormchasersofamerica.org Member #3
INSWA: http://www.insw.org Unit #21