This has been the same discussion for over a decade on here. I have tried, rejected and retried items dozens of times. When you are surronded by hundreds of acres of woods (as most who live in rural maine are) spraying your little patch of yard isnt all that effective) I too for years did the soap can, but frankly after one weekend where my family and friends helped me pick over 10k JBs and I finally relized its impossible to really put a dent in them, Ive given up. There are members here that DO spray and they were pretty much forced away from the Forums at that time. Weve had some back and forth battles here, with sadly knowledge people have left becuase of it. There is nothing you can do except spray with heavily toxic substances every 2-3 days to keep a rose garden in bloom. I fail to see where putting cheesecloth down would help, you couldnt see anything under them! I choose not to spray (other then remove infastations early in the season (red asian beetles and rose slugs, pre flower forming invasive, and 1-2 applications is enough to knock them out) so I have forgone repeating roses. I think its the best choice all around. I still have a couple and every once in awhile will get a small fall rose flush. When I first started (more north from here and a decade and half ago) growing roses, the season wasnt as bad, you could basically pick the JBS off, but now, it is worse, I can tell, you cannot keep up on a rose garden without spraying, especially if you have roses in any numbers

dan_keil_cr, In Jeff Gilman's new book "The Truth About Garden Recipes", he makes a few points about insect control, stating that garlic is more of a repellant than an insecticide that has medium term effect, say a week or two before you have to respray (unless it rains). The insects themselves will either leave your garden or go migrate to the leaves/buds/flowers you have missed. He strongly recommends that you use insecticidal soap to kill those insects you missed. Hot Chilli preparations either homemade or bought are particularly effective on mites as a repellant more so than an insecticide. He also likes the contact insecticide ingredient Acephate (not too tough on the beneficials with slight systemic activity), he does not like Imidacloprid for mites only (Bayer uses this in some insecticides) as it has been shown to actually increase the mite population, but could be used once to quickly wipe out an initial problem (some people have written it hurts bees but I have not seen proof of this). If you area is experiencing a drought it probable that all the gardens in your area are experiencing the same issues so spraying insecticides (a final resort) might only temporarily solve your problem as they will quickly return, maybe via your neighbors; thrips particularly are easily carried in the wind. One treatment might help to at least get it down to a manageable level or continued treatment with Beauvaria Bassiana fungus, if you can find it. If you can please let us know where you got it from. Thrips love drought especially plants that are drought stricken and thrips feed on mites, a veritable all you can eat buffet for them, mites and plants. One begets the other; similar to the Biblical plagues in Egypt; which in this case may be followed by diseased plants. In Whitney Crenshaw's "Garden Insects of America" he states that thrips are an important carrier of disease and are hard to remove from flowers and buds, so cutting them off when you initially spray may be a good idea. He further states that plants showing any sign of disease should be immediately destroyed. I am no expert on disease so you should discuss this with others more expert before you pull a plant. He feels sanitation of course is a key, raking leaves, etc., and that insecticides are a very weak second often being unsuccessful. Perhaps removing your current mulch and replacing it. And above all proper watering is the holy grail of control with this problem; watering washes thrips from plants and seals their pupal stages in the soil, which is why rainfall controls them. If your soil is not holding water well you might want to ask the soil experts what to do, mulch of course helps a lot. So it seems it might be solvable but will require constant vigilance and a lot of hard work spraying and making up your garlic preparations. One last note, home-made garlic preparations seem to work much better than store bought; you can buy no-skin cloves 3 lbs in a plastic jar from Costco. Store bought chilli concoctions seem to work better than home-made I do not know why. Hope this helps.

Hi, BettyLu: Welcome to wintersowing! I think that because your yard gets its sun in the heat of the day, it still counts as full sun, or almost full sun. I think all the seeds you listed are tough plants that could hold their own against tree roots and like full sun, although I'm not certain about Culver's Root because I haven't seen it growing in enough spots to know. Oh, wait, Purple Rocket is not Dame's Rocket, I just saw the latin. Well, it's Dame's Rocket I was thinking about, sorry! You may have those seeds because you already have those plants, so I'd better come up with some other ideas, right? :) At the base of my tall silver maple, I have salvias fighting to establish themselves (no water for them in this, their 2nd year. I'm mean!) Tansy, nigella, Montauk Daisy, Northern Sea Oats, and daylily. You can wintersow or spring-sow daylily, but you have to wait 2-4 years for flowers. Goldenrod would do fine, I'm sure, and there are pretty cultivars out there like Fireworks, Golden Baby and Little Lemon. They're great for fall color. Asters, too. (Montauk Daisy as well). Agastache, like Anise Hyssop, grows like a weed--and seeds like one--but I love it, and so do the hummingbirds and honeybees and goldfinches. Echinaceas should also hold their own against maple roots--they do so well in hard-packed dry clay in my friend's yard! I'm sure I'll think of some more things later! The wintersowers are planning on doing a seed exchange, with Token hosting it, so you should join in! And there will be great group seed swaps over on the Round Robin forum, like the ones hosted by Miceyrey, Drippy, and Patty. Bakemom offers "newbie seed packs." And if your Culver's Root is purple, I want to trade with you! :)

A couple years after the article Sharon posted was published. This was published. I can’t link to it since I am searching for these articles through my workplace at Caltech, and you would get a broken link, but here is abstract copied below. It seems that an important consideration for a banker plant used to host the predator mites is “tuft domatia”, which are little chambers on the leaves that are meant to house the beneficials. The plants provide little hidey-houses along with pollen :-) The predator mite Amblyseius swirskii is an omnivore, eating both pollen and other mites, thrips, whitefly etc. Selecting an ornamental pepper banker plant for Amblyseius swirskii in floriculture crops. By: Avery, PB et al. Abstract: Preference of phytoseiid mite, Amblyseius swirskii (Athias-Henriot) was assessed on four cultivars of ornamental pepper banker plant candidates; Red Missile (RM), Masquerade (MA), Explosive Ember (EE) and Black Pearl (BP) for potential control of pestiferous insects in floriculture. Significant differences in cultivar preference by A. swirskii was observed in choice experiments whether the test was pre- (with pollen) or during bloom. Overall, female mites laid more eggs when pollen was provided as a food source. The number of tuft domatia per cultivar leaf appeared to positively influence host preference in the choice plant tests pre-bloom. In addition, cultivar RM had the highest mean number +/- A SEM of tuft domatia per leaf (5.1 +/- A 0.3) and motiles per plant (4.0 +/- A 1.2), followed by MA, EE and BP. In choice tests on blooming plants, A. swirskii showed preference for both cultivars RM and MA compared to EE. These experiments indicated that the number of tuft domatia and availability of pollen can influence the host preference of A. swirskii for an ornamental pepper banker plant cultivar. Results from this study will help growers, researchers, educators and extension personnel in understanding the plant phenology promoting adoption of suitable banker plants for managing greenhouse and landscape insect pests.