Thank you for all the suggestions. I'm thinking I'll see what is in stock at my local nursery in terms of a spray. If there's nothing there that seems gentle I suppose I can just invest in buying ladybugs. Though I don't know what I'll do with 1500 or so ladybugs
. I am hopeful that I got rid of most of them; this morning I saw like a colony's worth under one flower. So I clipped off the flower, and I couldn't see many more on the actual plant. So hopefully I got most of them. They sure are nasty little things
.
orchid_girl: Do ants and aphids typically come together? I don't see any ant trails...Should I be looking for something in particular to know I have ants too?
Marcia_pa: You are far braver than I! I don't know if I could ever smoosh an aphid with my bare fingers!!
I realize that gardening requires dealing with bugs, but I prefer to deal with them with a ten foot pole
