Argh! You snooze, you lose... but at least the rose is looking happy (for the moment)

Well, I've been a bit lax with updating my blog over the last 3 weeks. I'm just finishing a year long course in Horticulture and what with finishing up my coursework, studying for the end of year exam, and applying for a job in a near by (plant) nursery, things have been a tad busy! argh! (Oh, I was successful getting the job so i'm well chuffed!)

Luckily, my plants seem to have faired pretty well considering they've been quite neglected. The rose has put on huge amounts of healthy looking growth (I hadn't realised quite how much until I looked back at the earlier photos I'd posted).

However, unfortunately, the green fly that I noticed on the lavender plants a couple of weeks ago, seem to be continuing their bid for world domination... and have spread to the my rose - argh!!! It's early days yet, I've only spotted a very few, but it just goes to show that you can't afford to be complacent in this game and that whilst there are hardly any aphids left on the lavenders anymore... I fear that the problem has simply moved home to a newer, tastier venue. So, I really must do something - i'm thinking of discarding the infested pot of tulips this afternoon, and then ordering some ladybirds and/or larvae this evening. My new rose bush, as the little green critters must learn to understand, is not on their menu! 

If you look carefully, you can see a couple of aphids on the new leaves.

Return of the aphids

Well, amazingly, a month on the magnolia is STILL flowering! What a plant!

Unfortunately, not everything in my 'garden' is looking so happy... over the last few weeks this seasons aphids have arrived and are going strong. It seems that they attacked the lavender's first, which I guess may not have been too happy after the winter since Scotland isn't exactly the mediterranean type climate that they prefer. Bizarrely, one lavender has faired much better than the other, despite both being heavily infested. I'm not quite sure why this might be, but unless the really sick looking one puts out some new growth and improves soon I'm thinking I might send it to the great compost bin in the sky! The lavenders were both plants I bought last year, a variety of Lavandula stoechas (French lavender) called 'Jamboree' and I suspect that they simply were not really hardy enough to live happily here (although one pot is ok - so maybe one side of my door way is more sheltered?). I'm thinking that I might replace the really unhappy looking plant with a more resilient and tougher Lavandula angustifolia (English lavender). Oh, I should mention that the 'happy' lavender is actually growing in a much smaller pot than the 'unhappy' lavender - so it isn't as huge as it looks in the photos!

In the meantime however, the aphids have spread to the pot of tulip leaves next to them (the flowers are mostly over), and onto my heuchera which is looking decidedly unhappy - although thankfully it is showing signs of survival as it's starting to put out new leaves. I'm thinking i'm going to bin the tulips rather than wait for the last few bulbs to flower... it's not looking good in that pot!

I need to find a solution and am considering ordering some ladybirds through the post. Either that, or making up some sort of organic spray to wash over the leaves as I'm not keen on using an insecticide. The only problem is that as the plants are in containers, I'm concerned that the spray will then become really concentrated in the compost that they're in - whereas if used on plants growing directly in the ground the spray would be more able to dissipate through the soil. I think the ladybirds would be fun to try though so I'm favouring them at the moment - unless any of you have any ideas?! Or I might try growing a pot or two of something oniony, like chives, and see if that deters them. Pesky critters... mutter mutter...