Howdy from Texas

[plasater]

I have been collecting orchids for about 15 years. I got my mother into it a few years later. She went crazy buying orchids, had to build a greenhouse for them. Sadly she passed from cancer in 2002. I inherited her many orchids & had to build my own greenhouse to put hers and my collections in. I have phaps, cattleya's, dendrobium's, encyclia's, epidendrum's & oncidium's. I am very happy I found this site. I have a lot of books and info on orchids, but it's nice to get info from real people. I am a gardening freak. More than half my backyard is a garden /w gardens all along the fence line. I have a garden along the front of my house and a small cactus garden by the front sidewalk. We want to make as much of the front yard as we can into cactus beds. Well enough about my gardens, thanks for reading. If any one knows an organic way to get rid of scales I would very much appreciate the info. Thanks again, plasater

[prisana]

Hi plasater, welcome to the forum. I'm excited to have you join us. I think most of us here are gardening freaks also, aside from being geeks I can't wait until you can post some photos of your garden and orchids.

I regret to say, the only organic way I got rid of scales was to pull my herbs out of the garden bed and toss them . As for scale on orchids , I've only been using alcohol on Q-tips only because they were not severe .

[plasater]

prisana Thanks for welcoming me. I will get pics of the orchids and gardens when we dry out a little bit. We have had rain for a week, so every thing is water logged and hanging over. Not use to 8" of rain in a five day period. Thanks for the info on the scales, I will try that.

[mayres]

Orgainic method for scale? WORM TEA!!! Just ask Jerry! I have been so impressed with how worm tea rid my plants of mealies that I shared this at the last orchid society meeting and someone sprayed all their plants for scale. Am happy to report the population was reduced by about 90-95%. Hopefully another application or two and it will be down to 100% - with no commerical pesticides! Let's hear it for the worms! mike

[chefatplay]

If you didn't say it I was going to, Mike. That stuff is something. I have been misting and soaking my orchids in it and I don't seem to be able to do anything wrong. ( I know don't get carried away.)

Plasater, the web site is ourvitalearth.com. It's worth it.

[pikevi]

Hello, plasater, welcome to the forum.

I have not used worm tea. But neem oil seems to work fine. I have been using my own emulsion made from the oil and water. But last week I saw neem oil spray at one of the garden centres. I am not sure of the company that makes it but the price was about $10cdn. for a (spray) bottle of 500ml (approx.17oz.).

I have to add that I have not used it for any specific situation with my orchids.

[plasater]

Thank you all for your responses. I will try them out and see if I can get rid of the scale. Sorry I took so long, yard work around here takes a couple of days.

[NancyG]

Hi and welcome to the forum. Not to sound like a broken record but I would recommend worm tea for the scale also. I can't seem to say enought about it since learning from Jerry on this forum.

I did use the neem oil before and you have to be really careful not to spray on plants where direct sunlight will hit. Some of my orchid's leaves were burned.

Garden freaks are the best,
NancyG