get rid of the plants.. you get rid of the flies ...

if you refuse.. then you cant complain ....

if it were me.. i would remove every other.. plant something else ... and when they get going.. remove the other half ...

you have a lot more patience than i.. dealing with this for 20 odd years..

ken

ps: i am sure you are going to say its not an option ... good luck .. just playing devils advocate ...

Euonymus has got to be the worst plant ever to plant anywhere near an entrance, walkway, or driveway....I so sympathize with you.

I don't know of anything that will stop the desperate need of flies to pollinate the flowers.

Thanks. The hedge came with the house when I bought it. Unfortunately, it's not in the budget to replace 60-70 feet of established hedge. I did cut it down to 4-5" from 6-7' but that didn't help. Large tree fell in a storm and knocked out about 3 linear feet of the hedge where the tree trunk squashed it. I was thinking of putting something in that hole, so maybe I can try the "every other" (or every 3-4 bushes) to ease into the cost of replacing the whole hedge. I'm in an urban rowhouse environment so it's nice to have a hedge for buffer/privacy.

This is the only time I see flies around the house - they don't even come around the trash bin. Flies just seem so much nastier than bees or other pollinators. Yuck.

Well, the other pollinators don't carry diseases around on their feet, and trek all over your counter top. Or your tooth brush. Or.......

That assumes the flies on the flowers are house flies or other kinds that get into dead matter or garbage.

Right^. In fact, almost surely not the same flies. There are a LOT of species of flies!

A rather heavy-handed approach, and not one I would undertake for this reason-would be to make an application of one of the plant growth regulators. I'm a bit rusty at the moment but one or more of these items are available which will chemically inhibit flowering. Something to chew on, anyway.

+oM