This week’s garden tip was submitted by Wally Schmidtke, sales manager at Pesche’s Flower Shop and Garden Center.

Several of our customers have come in with insect problems improperly diagnosed by garden departments in chain stores.

For example, one customer came in with mealy bugs. The customer had a tropical Jasmine houseplant covered with a sticky white substance called Honeydew, which is a secreted liquid the mealy bugs draw out of the plant. The salesman from a chain store recommended a fungicide, which had no effect on the problem, and it got progressively worse, finally ruined the plant and spread to several other houseplants.

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Unfortunately she wasted her money, time and ended up with a huge problem on all her houseplants.

Here is the proper way. Bring in a sample and we will put it under a digital microscope, and we’ll give you the proper advice and curative.

• Cut a branch of the problem plant and place it in a sealable bag, take samples from different areas of the plants, both leaves and branches. Make sure to clean your pruners with rubbing alcohol after pruning to remove disease pathogens that can transfer to healthy plants.
• Bring in samples from a dry plant, insects and certain fungi can be washed off from watering and rain.
• The samples should be fresh, and not left in a hot car for several days.

At Pesche's we specialize in plant pathology, we are here to help with both organic/natural and conventional curatives and fertilizers.

Related: Check out all the garden tips by Pesche; the last one was about protecting your plants from beetles.

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