Roaches vs. Your Orchids: How to Keep Your Plants from Getting Devoured
Cockroaches are among the greatest pests with which you will have to battle in growing orchids. They can do incredible damage in a few nights if not caught and destroyed.
Why are roaches such a huge problem? The answer is that one of their favorite things to eat is a potted plant’s tender young roots and flower stems. It is not unheard of for the roots of a plant to be entirely chewed up in a single night by these pests.
How to fight roaches and control them, if not beat them completely, is a huge subject. People have been fighting with them in their homes and kitchens for centuries, and we will probably be fighting them for centuries to come. They have evolved to be incredibly successful in living amongst us and in resisting extermination.
A wide array of poisons have been marketed in an effort to control roaches. If you go the poison route, you must of course only use those that will not harm your plants. Visit the garden aisle of your neighborhood hardware store.
Less risky to you and your household is the boric acid solution. Get some boric acid (cheap and readily available at most drug stores) and mix it up into a paste with some sugar, a little flour and water. The paste must be spread in every possible crevice to be effective. Some people even make sure to put some behind their light switch plates in their walls. To be completely safe, though, don’t allow any of this paste on the plants themselves.
You can also set out a few those “roach hotels.” These will trap many roaches and prevent a few at least from getting to your orchids in the first place.
You must look for roaches constantly–day and night–if you truly wish to keep them under control. You should especially search for them on and around your plants in the evening, using a flashlight. They leave their hiding places in the evening to seek food and it is then that they are most easily caught and killed. Don’t forget to move your pots and baskets around to uncover ones that may have run into hiding from you.
A decent guide to orchid growing will have many other tips and suggestions for making sure that pests such as roaches don’t destroy your plants. The most up-to-date guide to modern orchid care, many agree, is Orchid Care Expert by Nigel Howard, which can be downloaded from the Internet. Mr. Howard’s guide is a full education in itself, great for the novice as well as those more experienced. Also, be sure to visit the Orchid Secrets web site, which has a growing library of postings on all facets of orchid cultivation.
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