Thanks everyone! Now I'm wondering exactly what I used last year. Probably any old thing in my cabinet. Oh well, I'm still here so I clearly didn't poision myself. STacey ******************************** Not true. This is why people die from cancer years later. If the soap solution is too strong it can damage or kill the plant. therefore it might be a good idea to first test your solution on a branch or two for awhile before spraying all your plants. Some plants are much more sensitive then other plants. You are suppose to use dish soap and not detergent. good suitable dish soap is not easy to find. My garden has lady bugs and no aphids to be found. If I find aphids I will note the place and then upon finding a ladybug will move it to the aphids.

YouÂre welcome Toots! Traditional, pure soaps are made from fatty acids obtained from animal fats or plant oils. In insecticidal soaps such as SaferÂs, certain types of fatty acids have been selected and concentrated in order to increase effectiveness of the soap and to minimize adverse effects on plants; otherwise these soaps are no different from traditional, pure mild soaps and they are safe to use. Ivory Liquid Dish Soap is pure, mild and gentle, whatever, donÂt use extra strength, grease-cutting, or anti-bacterial soap, these kinds have added chemicals and may do more harm to your plants. Just be aware that although homemade remedy soap solutions or brand name insecticidal soaps say that they are organic/ natural and safe to use, they will only work on contact and sometimes the good beneficial bugs can get in the way. Don't go nuts and spray your whole garden, go to only those plants that are in desire need and spot spray making sure to get under the leaves as well. Sharon

I am brand new to roses so take my advice with a grain of salt. I planted a Tropicana Tea Rose and 3 Knockout roses a few weeks ago. The Knockouts, and to a much lesser extent the Tropicana, got attached by sawfly larvae over the weekend. It was amazing to see the destruction they can cause in just two days. I put a sprayer on my garden hose and blasted the buggers (shooting upward from underneath the leaves), starting from the bottom and ending at the top. I've been spot checking the roses in the morning and again in the evening and so far I have found only 1 larvae. I'll do it again this weekend and keep checking. If the problem returns and the garden hose proves futile, I will be trying Ortho's Ecosense brand Insecticidal soap which is $4.50 per 24 oz bottle at Wal-mart. Unfortunately I have only 4 rose bushes so it won't be too costly. Here is a link that might be useful: Rose Sawflies (Roseslugs)

Swed_hosta, We were infested with earwigs last year. At night, our front porch and garage would be covered. They were devouring my lanium and daisies out front. Nothing killed them or made them go away. I read about rolling up wet newspaper at night and then dumping the newspaper in a bucket of soapy water. It took about three days of doing that to get them out of the garage. For the front porch, at night I took buckets of soapy water and tossed it on the porch. It's almost instant death to those earwigs. After that, I got brave enough and started tossing buckets of soapy water on my plants at night to kill them. I figured it couldn't be much worse than the earwigs eating them. When those Japanese Beetles came, I tried killing them with Sevins and some other kinds of insecticides. Nothing I had worked. So, I did the bucket of soapy water trick on them. There were so many swarming in my sedums, it took six buckets. Les, I don't know the answer to your question, but when I was killing the Japanese beetles with soapy water, there were a few beetles that had made their way to my strawberries. I had a staw and a cup of soapy water with bubbles. I was going to pour the whole cup into the plant, but I used the straw to kind of poke around first. I had some bubbles on the end of the straw and just touching the Japanese Beetle with the soap on the straw caused them to die, almost instantly. Lesson learned on Japanese Beetles, dump the soapy water as soon as you see them. Japanese Beetles emit a scent that tells other beetles to come join them. It only took one day to eliminate all JB from my garden for the season with the soapy water. I wasted days on the insecticides. It seemed that every day that I left them there, they traveled deeper into the garden. Gesila