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Neighbor Gerald swore by dish soap for killing aphids on my sunflowers. What a disaster.
Gerald lives three houses down and has been birdwatching for like 40 years so I figured he knew his stuff. He said just mix a few drops of Dawn with water and spray it on the aphids that were killing my sunflowers. The aphids died alright but then the soap residue stayed on the leaves and petals for over a week. Next thing I know the goldfinches and chickadees that usually hit those sunflowers stopped coming around completely. Took me two solid weeks of rinsing the plants every morning before the birds finally came back. I lost a bunch of seeds too because the flowers didn't develop right. Has anyone else had a backyard remedy backfire like this or am I just bad at following directions?
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tylerj2228d ago
My buddy Derek tried the same trick on his rose bushes last summer. He's a pretty relaxed guy so he just sprayed the soap mix and forgot about it. Three days later his wife noticed the leaves were all curled up and kinda yellow. They ended up having to trim back half the bush because the soap basically burned the edges of the new growth. Took him like a month of babying it before the roses even thought about blooming again. Derek still blames Gerald types for every plant problem he has now.
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miles_garcia28d ago
WAIT hold on you meant the SOAP stayed on for a WEEK? I thought you just spray it once and it breaks down in like a day. That's CRAZY that the residue lasted that long and actually scared off your goldfinches.
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