The most floriferous plants in my GH right now are tropical hibiscus. However, they are whitefly magnets. They are one of two plants I use a systemic on in the winter (the other is gardenia). Other winter flowers include costus, plumbago, jasmine. I don't use any of the traditional GH IPM insects like lacewings, but I have an endless supply of mantis egg cases, and periodically I bring one in the GH. The duranta contracted a nasty case of aphids, but I held off on spraying and the mantids got it nicely under control...just a thought. The link below is one of the better companion planting charts I have seen. Here is a link that might be useful: companion planting

This is the first time I've ever seen grasshoppers around here. Thought they were little crickets at first because I haven't had much success catching them and didn't get a good look. Then found large ones when moving things to clean patio the other day and my father ID'd them as grasshoppers. Had 2 tomato plants for first time and they're all over them. Earwigs, grasshoppers and slugs have eaten through more foliage this year than I could've imagined. Even two beautiful Stachys which should bloom next year is full of holes. Vera, thanks for info on relationship between grasshoppers and earwigs. :( My only compost pile (finished) is full of earwigs so I don't want to put it in beds as I'd planned. I find them rolled up in leaves on plants and try to squish them before they can wriggle out and escape. I try to stomp them when they scatter in soil but most get away. They're nasty little buggers so I'm careful only to grab with gloves. Otherwise it's the "knock down and stomp" method. Do we have lots of grasshoppers because I planted where there wasn't anything but lawn & boxwood? Did the unusually wet/cold weather for so long promote their appearance?

I also have tons of aphids now. This is the time I guess. I also found a few white flies grrr. A few days ago I sprayed Avid for mites again due to some new cuttings looking bad...so figured the avid would work on aphids and whiteflies as well (it says it does). Well ,it works for mites but N0T at all on aphids and I still see some whiteflies too! Yesterday, I must of squished a thousand aphids! I didn't want to treat with anything else since I just used the Avid, so I squished! One thing you can do if your plants are outdoors, is mix up some soapy water and a drop of oil and spray them. It works pretty good. Then take the hose and lightly spray them all off. That's what I did for my edible plants. I've never tried Raid for aphids but it seems like it would work. Raid worked good on the fungus gnats...just don't spray it in full sun -I accidently hit some leaves with the overspray once and after the sun hit them they looked like someone tried to fry them in the skillet lol.

I think winds are what keeps mites off our plants, and then those winds blow them into greenhouses. :o) It's so hot where I live that I just kept the door open on my greenhouse, I think that helped...I THINK. But the funny thing was, I would get spidermites in my GH, and no where else. There's not much humidity here, so you'd think that the spidermites would go where there's no humidity, but nope! They'd just go to town on my plumeria and some others. I don't have a greenhouse now, and my poor tropicals just don't get infested nearly as much anymore. Cept I found, for the first time in my life, katydid eggs on my guava! But that's a freak thing.