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Post by carnivoure12 on Apr 22, 2009 15:30:18 GMT -5
I for one think the pesticide ban is a great and wonderful thing, sure OUR plants weill suffer for it, but we have to stop thinking about ourselves, the ban will have a better impact on environment, which at the moment is more valueble than anything
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Post by brian on Apr 22, 2009 16:20:59 GMT -5
$20000? OUCH! Ok, I’ll haz waste the stuff. In my defense I used to water the lawn once a week deeply and cut it 3 inches high to keep weeds from growing. Then the city moved from flat rate water pricing to metering and I was hearing about how its good for the environment not to waste water (even tho being between 2 great lakes all our water comes from Niagara Falls, not a depleting aquifer). I also got a hard time because with pressure fluctuations and the curved curb around the property, and the sidewalk running a couple of feet from the curb, water drops would get on paved areas. That’s ok, I stopped watering and let the grass go dormant brown in the summer. It comes back in the fall and less work for me! The problem is, when it goes dormant then the occasional summer rain gets the weed seeds growing. Again, I had no problem with that. Thistle attracts goldfinches and goldenrod does not cause allergies. The problem was peer pressure. It was like OMG THERE ARE THREE FOOT WEEDS AND SOON THERE WON’T BE ANY GRASS LEFT! As a good environmentalist I should have explained to my peer the benefits of native vegetation. As a last result I could have told her “here is Mr. Weed Tool, if you don’t like the native vegetation you can always get on your knees and dig them out”. Then I would probably get a frying pan upside of my head. So I gave in and started using 2,4-D. No more I guess. I don’t know if I can convince my peer that wildflowers are beneficial. I’m open to ideas but maybe I’ll have to just pave the whole durn thing
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Post by renesis on Apr 22, 2009 16:53:51 GMT -5
Yeah, I hear ya. A lot of places were doing promotions over the last week "GET YOUR PESTICIDES BEFORE ITS TOO LATE" kind of deals. I'm sure there will be enough people sneaking it onto their lawns, and likely a few that stocked up several years supply.
Its a good move for the environment and overall health, but the real motive behind it appears to be financial. Halifax did it and and saw a >50% boom over 5 years in the landscaping industry as a result. Not to mention, alternatives to chemicals seem to cost more and will end up generating more revenue.
We've already experienced it on the soil side of our business, our soil with top dress fertilizer incorporated are being sold faster than we can produce it! Landscaping companies have been promoting that a healthy lawn suppresses weeds naturally by not allowing any space for the seed to establish.
I've also been experimenting with corn gluten for weed control, it looks promising, but the stuff really smells - I don't know how much fun that would be in a large yard. Of course, if you put down corn gluten, you can't reseed your lawn either.
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Post by brian on Apr 22, 2009 17:20:03 GMT -5
You're right, Renesis, its good for the environment. I've been topdressing with compost I buy from one of my clients and I heard gluten is an alternative. But will any of this stuff work if I don't do regular watering?
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Post by lloyd on Apr 22, 2009 17:25:27 GMT -5
I prefer the perennial/ground-cover garden to a lawn anyday. Grass is so water intensive in the Toronto 3 week drought every August. It always goes brown and looks dead.
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Post by renesis on Apr 22, 2009 20:34:59 GMT -5
brian, corn gluten actually works better if its not watered in often.
Its a peptide that is microbially broken down, it inhibits seedlings from sending out any secondary roots and they basically end up shriveling and dying out shortly after emerging. Of course, this means any seeds you want will also be inhibited. If you water it in while any of the seeds are coming up, it tends to wash the peptides from the gluten away and the seedlings survive. So, its not exactly the best control...
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Post by hal on Apr 22, 2009 21:02:39 GMT -5
I prefer the perennial/ground-cover garden to a lawn anyday. Grass is so water intensive in the Toronto 3 week drought every August. It always goes brown and looks dead. Me too. About the only lawn on our property is out on the verge between the road and the sidewalk. The rest is perennials and permeable hardscaping.
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Post by vraev on Apr 22, 2009 22:42:05 GMT -5
lol Ellsie! I have no clue of how all these bugs got here: 2 types of scale, now spider mites..... what else can infect CPs??? maybe if I look closer I'll find aphids. *shrugs*. Its sad that despite of all the efforts of keeping everything self contained..... pests still manage to find their way in.
Anyways....whatever! All I can do now is hope the neem does its magic.
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Post by lloyd on Apr 23, 2009 7:12:23 GMT -5
I used to think that bugs would come out of my nearby garden, on new plants or maybe out of dormancy. Sometimes they seem to be able to wait for the proper conditions like the scale that only attacked my phalanopsis flowers for a couple of years before I got rid of the buggies. Maybe some plants can have low level infestations that can attack other plants under stress. That's why it's so important to do really up-close checks probably every month or so-which of course I forget to do until disaster has struck.
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Post by vraev on Apr 23, 2009 22:04:15 GMT -5
well....close checks are one thing. Generally.... plants being sooo slow to respond...its almost hard to recognise that somehting is wrong. I'll get a pic of the ceph that is effected. You will clearly see why I never guessed that anything is wrong. Its a healthy growing thriving plant making more pitchers and growing as we speak...but I just paid attention as I saw some small specks on the newest pitcher to form and when i investigated closer on another leaf...thats when i spotted the mites. I seriously have no clue where all these bugs are from. In-fact even the plants that had scale....when I got them....there was no scale on it whatsoever. As far as I know...I literally had no bug problems till october when I moved to my apartment. The apt is on 15th floor. There isn't really a garden or a park through which I walk and brush bugs onto my clothes...I spend 10-15 hrs in a level 2 biosafety lab where for the most part...everything is clean. The only thing I can think of is: the carpet on the floor. All my plants are sitting on the carpet. I don't know if the previous tenant had bug ridden plants...and if some of those eggs are on the carpet which escaped the vacuuming that I did when I moved in. OR the bugs were on vegetables that I buy and "brushed" off to the cp's on the floor as I move past them. (even though that is disturbing that i might be eating spider mites ).
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