I had bought a Snowbird hawthorn about 10 years ago and it had been plagued by desease on the leaves, finally got rid of that , this year it's full of green aphids. I have not been trying to get rid of them yet because the tree is really growing this year, it's like it finally woke up and I don't want to slow it down again. Spraying with water is just a pain. So I will just watch and see what happens. I do put ant killer down at the base of the tree some times if they are getting to thick.

I have full control of the ants. The water spraying might pose a problem for me on the fruits might cause them to split or unsightly marks from to much spraying with water? I don't remember one minus 30 day this winter and barely any last year just a longer winter. Will these aphids cycle decline with the season and heat or should I just keep on with pesticide or try the oil I bought. I just don't want to make it worse by hurting all the little "good critters" on my trees because there is a lot of them too.

The aphids on my brookgold are curling up entire branches now and the fruit is turning yellow and dropping on those areas. Damb I can't win , last few years didn't get no bees now this year finally get lots of bees and fruits but the other pests are testing me. Anybody ever try preying mantis instead of lady bugs

I can see why a harvest of any food should be celebrated, I would starve if I had to live off of my produce.

I'm afraid that's the price you pay when giving your trees booster juice lol.

I've been treating aphids, [on a small scale]...important to have a keen eye and spot these buggers before your'e overrun with a army. It usually starts on lushes end shoots, use forefinger and thumb and pull leaves through these two finger wiping them off or squeeze gently not insuring leaves.

costco trees are bad for aphids .plums in particular

All trees in calgary right now with fresh growth are getting it.

Problem I was using a squirt bottle and garden hose for spraying this won't work. Yesterday I hooked up my air compressor 140psi and sprayed all my trees for a few hours with horticulture oil,lemon juice and soap. Looks like I killed them all pretty much. My Evans cherry tree was the hive. I found branches covered completely with aphids and one branch was touching the fence. That fence board was covered in ants I think they were using this tree as the hive. I do have sticky tape around bases of trees to screw over the ants but they are looking for branches touching fences and such now so I eliminated that issue and the horticulture oil worked wonders. Also there is hundreds or parasitic wasps in my trees now wiping them out. With the air compressor and paint sprayer I used I didn't need to peel open branches the high pressure does that. I will blast again in few days and I think the wasps and lady bugs will take care of the rest.

Oh boy.... thank you for this post! I checked my Toba Hawthorn today and guess what? It was indeed covered with aphids! Boy, I hate these things!!!

I did try to spray that with some organic bug oil this evening.... not sure if it has got all of them but we shall see.

If they persist, what will happen to my poor Toba Hawthorn?

I've read that horticultural oil was only for prior to leaf-out...hope you aren't causing more damage by spraying at the wrong time.

Some of The fruits have a weird color marks from the oil but that's it. I probably killed most of them .ill just use water and soap from now on to spray them off if they recover .it says the oil is good for the dormant and growing season but I've never used it before.

I could also spray with it than wash the trees off with water right after. Once I descoverc the weird color marks I did was all the trees .i finally have plums on almost every tree I am not letting aphids destroy it. There was some spots they decimated branches and the plums turned yellow and fell off. Probably because the aphids killed all the leafs and the fruit drops on that area.

I wonder what is a safe spray for aphids there is a lot this year so far maybe they will decline in a few weeks but my sprayer did a pretty good job getting most off. There is even flying aphids now in my yard.

Did a bit of research into this and do not use soaps on plums at higher than0.05 percent . I did more than that and mixed with oil. The mixing part was my mistake horticulture oil should be perfectly fine at 1% at anytime after bloom. Next year I will use the oil when trees are dormant weeks after I spray with copper.

I really don't know what triggers aphids this bad...haven't seen any yet but that doesn't mean I'm out of the woods.

there is ants like crazy that are caring for them and moving them. My area doesn't have much trees ,I have over 20 trees ......they are only attacking the hybrid and japanese plums. They are avoiding the mt Royal italians and a just finally found a couple on a shoot down low on the greengage. They have not got on the apricots at all nor do they like the Blackice or sandcherries. Wondering if certain variety are kind of resistant to them?

There was a million at least on the Evans they were black little buggers causing no visible damage? No curled leaves?

the japanese plum trees are green little buggers. And the leaves curl like crazy. Guess certain types like certain trees.

I've never treated or sprayed my trees for insects before. i just want to keep my harvest safe. On the few branches they destroyed the fruits turn yellow and fall off.

My first big mistake was to spray the trees with pesticide .killed all the beneficials along with most of the aphids. Than there was a huge out burst about 2 weeks after that ,now I see all the parasitic wasps in my yard working hard so I justed used soap and horticulture oil. The oil made it so the soap was really stuck to some of the fruits and a few fruits now have a bit of a mark from it .....so I did t win that way either. Now after that vigorous effort from me I wiped almost all of them out I will keep them in check with just water and my fingers when I see them ,control the ants and soon they will be gone until fall when they will return to breed and lay eggs to over winter .the over wintering eggs are easily killed with dormant spray I also spray copper in fall and spring which I can't see any insects or eggs surviving .im going to get a big bag of lady bugs in a few weeks and let them along with the wasps take care of this now. I don't have any lady bugs in my yards yet?

I have a crazy number of aphids in my delphiniums this year..I have no idea why, and I haven't seen them infesting anything else(yet). At first I tried blasting them with water, but now the plants are large and it doesn't seem effective because they have so many leaves to hide under. Then I tried picking out all the worst leaves to lessen their numbers, hoping the plant would out-compete them. Now they are covered in that honeydew crap. Come on ladybugs! Do your job! I don't really want to start spraying the plants, because with how densely leafed the plants are, I think I'll miss a lot of them.

So now I'm wondering if I should just wait it out and hope for the best? I'll clean up all the trash by those plants in the fall, hopefully that'll help. I've never had them this bad. :(

Where do you get a bag of lady bugs, Matt?

Costco .ca,homedepot.ca or greengate garden center in calgary but $$$$$

So I pretty much lost almost all the fruits hanging on my toka now. They are stunned by the branches they are hanging on absolutely destroyed by aphids. I'll be lucky to get a few plums off toka this year. It never held onto much maybe over a dozen but I will be lucky to get a couple. And the brookgold is taking a beating too. I give up and am letting nature take care of them now. I'll deal with them with dormant spray come fall and spring. It's to much work keeping up with them. I have noticed once I got control of ants they just find new ways up the trees .i have set out ant poison so maybe that works and I see lots of parasitic wasps now those guys are best for aphid control. From my readings online the aphids should go away soon until fall so hopefully I don't loose much more. I was really looking forward to eating Tokas plums but I guess the aphids beat me this year.

so aphids appear to be recovering to the point I cannot do anything. They are now attacking my European plums every new shoot on the toka is taking a beating and about a 1/4 section of the brookgold. There is nothing I can do now. I bought 2 bags of lady bugs I've used soap, hort.oil now there is flying aphids getting on my greengage plums that just started shooting new growths.

Does anybody know if in winter I can wipe them out ?ive read about it but never tried it . I always spray copper in fall and spring and don't know the effects of hort oil mixed or sprayed over copper?

also will it even matter if I treat for aphids in winter and do wipe out all eggs. Won't new aphids just make there way on my trees anyways?

My poor lupines are covered with aphids!!! Yikes!!! I just sprayed that with an insecticide oil but it did not seem to be doing much... SIGH!

Just seen my first sightings on plums now. Eggs do overwinter,...not sure what triggers the
invasion.

My delphiniums have been totally decimated this year by aphids. Strangely, they haven't attacked anything else so far. I hope someone will chime in on how to kill them over winter, because I sure don't want to deal with big eyesore delphiniums next year as well!

Sorry to hear it is ruining your fruit trees.

Konrad I think the light winter triggers it. Some years you guys notice that the trees have a bit harder time breaking dormancy some trees have dieback or injury it takes a bit to recover from .this year not a speck of die back on anything and the plums ,April came and shots out crazy amounts of new growths so fast.i pruned them heavy also and gave them a blood and bone meal along with all purpose fruit tree fertilizer .nitrogen doesn't help but I can't predict insects,I tried my best wiping them out now Im giving up if I loose all the brookgold plums I don't care. There is 3 left plums hanging on toka that tree has been decimated . Also using anything besides water at this point has adverse effects. Oils will kill preditors like parasitic wasp which I've notived in my yard does the best job. I bought a bunch of ladybugs but they most likeLy took off. I might try preying mantis next year as they are 20-30$ at Costco or homedepot.ca and you get up to 30.

I have noticed once they bite enough leafs on a certain area the fruits in those spots start to yellow shrivel and fall off . The aphids here do not at all touch my apricot trees or any of my fruit shrubs or vines. They prefer plums .gov of bc has a great article I have black cherry aphids and the green mealy type on my trees.my evans was covered in black aphids I sprayed it with hort oil and soap about a month ago not a trace of any aphids on that tree but also I'm pretty sure that's what's caused an amazing fruit set to abort like 80% .cherry leafs don't curl as easy as fresh plums do so they were easy to get to plum and Apple trees will be difficult and you will cause more damage than good.i just ended up wiping out everything on my trees except the areas the sprayer did not hit ex the curled up leafs Some survived reproduced faster than new preditors came and now I've got a war

http://www.agf.gov.bc.ca/cropprot/tfipm/aphids.htm

Thank you for the helpful information mattpf. The aphids have been bad here as well. I've been spraying with water but they just come back.