I read many positive things about it at Dave's Garden and other places. The science behind is quite legit; it comes out of research at Cornell University. I am planning to try it this season. Here is a link that might be useful: Eden Bioscience

I read that somebody tested them on violets. Inconclusive results. So I am going to use my Messenger on roses only. Yes - you are supposed to spray it - and the dilution ratio is on a package - guess the same way you used on your ferns. May be there is some sense to try it with watering - looks like roses absorb nutrients by leaves much better than violets. Irina

hahaha. dilbert I just found this thread a few minutes ago. I read down the thread and kept asking myself how come they dont take a few flowers and not spray them and a few flowers and spray them and notice the difference if any. The only reason I can think of is that once a person spends big money on a tiny spray they have a vested interest in taking the position that they did the correct thing. therefore they are only interested in showing that their spending of the money was the correct decision. they are not interested in finding out the entire thing is a hoax. No one is going to get on this thread and say they spent $20 on a hoax. Now a true scientist will do that. but not a normal person. so dilbert you are going to have to run the experiment yourself. of course it would be better if it was a double blind. meaning you did not know what sprayers had the chemical. you would just do the job and report the results and then you would find out after which sprayers had the chemical. but that is difficult to do. I suspect that there is some improvement. but the real question is how much. for example if you spend $20 and spray your vegetables and get $10 more vegetables it was again not so good. but again that is very difficult to measure. there are other organic sprays like Serenade that will protect plants and the cost is very minor. well it can be minor if you buy concentrate. so again you might have to compare the cost of $20 in spray from one item to less than a $1 cost to spray with another product. again a tricky experiment. but you are correct. someone has to do the first simple experiment of spraying some and not spraying other plants to see what happens. trying to keep everything else identical. by the way simple things like alfalfa pellets make a great organic tea with lots of benefits. is messanger better than the alfalfa tea. I am not so sure. of course the alfalfa tea can be sprayed on but it is often used generously on the roots because it is so low cost less than 1 cent per gallon compared to some $3 per gallon. the alfalfa tea does contain the major item in Super Thrive. I suspect that ST is simply an alfalfa tea. Now you can purchase 50 pounds of alfalfa pellets for less than the cost of a tiny ounce or so bottle of Super Thrive.

I don't think you can buy it in Canada. I got my sister to bring some up from the States 2 years ago. I used it all that summer but can't say I noticed a dramatic difference in my garden, so if you can't get hold of it don't fret as you may not be missing anything... Debs