If the beneficial insects that feed on thrips and aphids are attracted to certain plants, it makes sense (to me, anyway) to plant those beneficial- insect attractors as some of the companion plants to roses. I tried doing this in Alabama, and it either worked pretty well or I didn't have much of a thrips problem anyway. I don't ever use pesticides in the garden either, as I am aware that there is an entire universe going on at the insect level that I don't see or much understand. I also do believe what Hamp and buford say, that there are some roses that are thrip magnets. It would be fun to make a list of those sometime. So, here are a couple of links that list plants that attract hoverflies, tachnid wasps, ladybugs, lacewings, etc. in case anyone is interested. http://www.dianeseeds.com/flowers/beneficial-insects.html Here is a link that might be useful: plants that attract beneficial insects

I guess I got a little confused because elsewhere in this forum I read that you should remove the seeds when canning tomatoes for sauce because the seeds could make the sauce bitter. Is that because there is something different about sauce versus dried? No it is a matter of taste buds and maybe digestive tract and a bit of appearance as the seeds tend to turn black when dried. :) Many find seeds turn bitter in whatever tomato product they make - myself included - so a general guidelines removal is recommended. Other don't notice it. Some find the seeds irritating to the digestive tract so removal is also recommended for that reason. But I will say that the majority of the seeds are easy to remove before drying and no food mill is need, just your thumb. Just pop the center gel lump and seeds out after cutting the tomatoes. Leaves a few but the majority pop right out. Dave

Hey heavensabvus1, you keep getting rid of these critters but if you enhance the natural immunity on your plants, you may be able to deter these bugs for the long term. I recommend working some worm castings into your soil or better yet, innoculate your soil with worms. Worm castings contain an enzyme called chitinase which eats away the shells of many insects. It will take a while for your plants to absorb these enzymes but it will save you a lot of trouble down the road. You may also want to innoculate your soil with beneficial bacteria and fungi. You can buy prepackaged organic fertilizers like Kelloggs at Home Depot that already have these organisms. These organisms form a symbiotic relation with your plant and soil rhizosphere and protect the plant and inhibit insect attacks by several mechanisms. One of these mechanisms is the direct infection of insects by some of the fungal or microbial organisms. Some of these microbial organisms, the bacillus species for example, are naturally found in the soil and certain bacteria and fungi can directly infect and eventually kill harmful insects. To get rid of your pests, I would also highly recommend putting out ant bait stations. Ants innoculate plants with aphids in order to create a steady supply of sweet plant sap. The ants pretty much farm the aphids. By getting rid of ants around your property, you should see a dramatic decrease in your aphid population. To directly kill the aphids, I recommend using Chrysanthemum tea. Chrysanthemum contains a chemical called Pyrethrin which act as a mild natural insecticide. You will have to spray your trees every couple of days for about a week or two untill the insects finally realize its futile. The aphids will eventually come back and you will have to spray again but hopefully your tree has absorbed enough chitinase from the worm castings and also your beneficial bacteria and mycohrizzal fungi would have established itself well enough in your potting soil that even if the bugs did come back, they will take one bite out of your plant, vomit a little, and scuddle to your neighbors yard for some greener pastures :) Beware of those ant bait traps around pets, small children and rain however. If it rains heavily in your area, the poison can get washed into your soil. I try to stay organic but I haven't found a good way of getting rid of ant aside from the bait stations. Good luck with your citrus!

The blossom drop started about 6-8 weeks ago, when the days were quite long. Prior to their arrival, I had very bountiful plants. Since their arrival: just about nothing. This includes both the plants I planted at the beginning of the season and plants that were planted about 2 months ago. Further damning evidence: I have a tomato plant in the front that barely has any of them on it, and it's pumping out a ton of tomatoes. The plants are both in beds and containers. Automated drip line in the beds. I stopped fertilizing when I believed they were aphids. The flowers don't drop, they appear dried out. And these bugs are always on the stem immediately below where the flowers are. They tend to just roam around, always below where the flowers are. They're never on sucker branches. I have sprayed both neem oil and insecticidal soap directly on them and watched them walk around for minutes afterwards. Basically, tomato production just abruptly stopped right around the same time the population of these bugs jumped up. The plants have been growing in size and are thriving. I had one that had a 33' diameter (my wife ended up pulling it since it wasn't producing but was getting so big). Here's what it looked like before their overrunning the plants: I was getting this weekly: And this was a week or two ago, before my wife pulled up the two biggest ones (there are only 4 tomato plants in the beds in this photo, three in the middle bed and one in a back bed you can't really see): The plants seem healthy in every single way, except that most of the flowers shrivel up before fruiting. Most drop before they even blossom. But some make it through and flower and I'm getting 1-6 tomatoes a week.