Roaches, Nasty Roaches

Although this is the Horticulture Hotline, I decided to write about entomology (insects) today. The old cockroach has found its way into many Lowcountry homes.  Contact your pest management company if you have a contract or consider getting on a contract if you do not like dealing with cockroaches.  If you are a die hard do-it-yourselfer, here are a few tips that will make your battle a little more effective. 

Treat your outside perimeter. A band about three feet from your house generally in the mulch is a good place to start. A granular product like Bug Blaster in the mulch beds surrounding your house will help kill the roaches before they get inside your house. A NOP (National Organics Program) organic product that is very effective is InTice Perimeter Bait. Using a spray around windows, doors, garage entry, and any other entry point to your house will also keep them from entering your house. EcoVia is a NOP product you can use around the outside and inside of your house.    

Underneath your house, consider dusting with a boric acid product. BorActin is a NOP product labeled for this or you could use the InTice Perimeter Bait. These products will last a long time in the crawl space of your house because they are away from sunlight and moisture. 

In your house, consider using InVict Gold cockroach gel. InVict Gold is a fast acting bait that has our customers at Possum’s singing it’s praises. The bait products are great because they move throughout the roach population.  Maxforce Gel capitalize on roaches nasty habits needed to survive, making these products very effective.  An immature roach has to eat the fecal pellets of the adult roach in order to mature into an adult roach.  Roaches also cannibalize each other.  By using this bait, you get a domino effect by the little roaches eating the fecal pellets of an adult that has consumed the bait.  When one roach dies from the bait, then another eats the dead roach, it will also die.  In wall voids you can also use InTice Perimeter Bait. 

There are many good aerosols that come with a long straw that are designed to be sprayed in cracks and crevices.  Now there is a good selection of “green” aerosols to choose from along with the old standbys. If you treat the outdoors and use a gel, an aerosol application probably will not be necessary.   

Definitely consider using a growth regulator to help lengthen your control of the roaches.  Generally, growth regulators are very safe to humans if applied properly, and some will also help with fleas (Nylar). Growth regulators will keep roaches from reproducing; therefore, breaking up their life cycle. 

Knowing where to put these products is crucial for the success.  Always read, understand and follow the product label.  There are also many pest control companies that are well established in this area and are very capable of taking care of any of your uninvited guests. If you are a do-it-yourselfer, this article should help and the products suggested should work well without being very toxic.

Shopping List

Here we are, another spring in the Lowcountry is about to explode. Are you ready? Do you have a plan for the maintenance of your landscape? Did any plant or tree give you a hard time last year with a black, sticky, unsightly film covering your porch, sidewalk, or driveway? Did you have patches of dead areas in your turf this fall and winter? Did you do any soil testing? Were you happy with the way your lawn looked? Was your spouse?

Do you have weeds in your turf and beds? Moles? Has your landscape matured and it is time to make some changes? Are you going to grow any edibles?

Here is a shopping list of products that will help you get your landscape on the right track. As always, if you do not have the time or would rather spend your time doing other things, there are many landscape professionals in the area.

1. SeaHume - put it out wall to wall in your landscape now. SeaHume is a natural organic product and is completely non-toxic to humans, animals, and fish. This seaweed and humic acid product packs a big punch, and will increase root formation, increase vascular strength, chelates nutrients in the soil making them available to the plant, promotes green color, feeds microorganisms in the soil, is loaded with bio stimulants and carbon and reduces stress on turf, ornamentals, and edible plants.
2. Dominion Drench will give you season long control of those nasty aphids, white flies, scale and other insects that poop all over your porch, sidewalk, or driveway. By controlling the insect, the black sooty mold will not be a problem. The older variety of crepe myrtles are famous for getting aphids and turning whatever is under them black. Gardenias are known to get white flies and have this situation. Easily controlled with Dominion.
3. Neem Oil has replaced horticultural (Volck for the old school gardeners) oil for me. Neem oil controls everything horticultural oil does and it also controls several common fungi. Neem oil is organic and very safe and inexpensive. Neem oil is a great preventive and curative product for many insects and disease. Get it out now and be ahead of the game.
4. Preemergent herbicides for turf and beds. You 25 year followers of the Horticulture Hotline are no stranger to the benefits of killing weeds before they come up and ruin the look of your landscape. Put out your preemergent products now and worry less about small seeded summer annual weeds.
5. Preventive Fungicide – you know who you are. You get the same dead patches in your turf every spring and fall. Pick up a good systemic fungicide now (Cleary’s 3336, Disarm) and be ready for the fungus attack.
6. Soil Test – how can you fertilizer without knowing what you need? Soil test are becoming mandatory in parts of the USA before you are allowed to fertilize. Let’s be responsible before someone tells us we must. At Possum’s we can also provide you a program (for a fee) that will provide you with the nutrients the soil test recommends your soil needs.
7. Moles are difficult to control this time of year because their food source is deeper in the ground because of soil temperatures, making their food source harder to control with an insecticide. Repellex makes a repellent that is very effective this time of year according to our customers. Spread Repellex over your yard and chase the moles to your neighbors. If you are nice and want the product to be more effective for you, you will get your neighbor to treat at the same time increasing your mole free area.

Always read, understand and follow product label. The product label is a Federal Law.

Moles, Moles and more Moles

Moles are always a hot topic in the Lowcountry. I try to write about them only once a year.

  I still recommend a 3 prong approach when controlling moles for the less adventurous people that do not want to trap and look at a dead mole.  These 3 steps are:

1. Kill the mole
2. Manage its food source
3. Repel other moles from your yard

Moles tunnel through your yard looking for food.  They usually have several main runs through your yard as well as secondary tunnels.  The secondary tunnels are where they collect their food, and once they have a gone down a secondary tunnel, they will not return to that tunnel.  In order to kill a mole with bait or a trap, you must be able to locate the main tunnel.

The best way to locate the main runs is to take a stick and poke holes in the tunnels in your yard.  Next, mark where you made these holes.  The next morning come and check to see if the holes are plugged. If they are plugged, then you know you have a main tunnel.  The mole will only plug holes on the main tunnel.  That evening, open up one of the holes that the mole plugged the night before and place bait (or trap) 5 feet on either side of the hole that you reopened.  When the mole comes back to re-plug the hole it will have to walk right over the bait (or trap).  These baits are very tasty to the mole, so the mole will usually eat the bait and die.

Three baits that we regularly hear good results about are Mole Patrol, poison worms and Talpirid.  I prefer Mole Patrol because it is one third the price and has 6 times the amount of bait placement as Talpirid.  Stay away from poison peanuts.  Moles do not eat peanuts, they eat insects and worms.

Controlling the food source is the next most important factor in managing moles on your property.  Depending on which doctor (PHD) you believe, the mole eats 85-125% of its body weight every day.  In human terms a 100 lb. person would eat 85-125 lbs of food per day. That is a lot of food! Think of Michael Phelps and all he eats from swimming in water. A mole is swimming in soil!

Using a product like Sevin or Aloft on a regular basis will do a good job in managing the mole’s food source.  Monitor your insect populations with a soap solution to determine how often you need to apply insecticides.  Use two ounces of lemon dish detergent in a five gallon bucket of water and pour slowly over your soil in the areas where you think you might have insects and see what comes to the surface.  Some products get tied up in the thatch to kill surface insects (like ants), so be sure to get a product for sub-surface insects.

Castrol products (Mole Repellent, Repellex Mole,Vole and Gopher Repellent) and other repellents (Mole Stopper) work good as perimeter treatments to keep moles from re-infesting your property. Be sure there are not any moles on your property before you put out this barrier or you will trap them inside your landscape.  Make a 10-20 foot band treatment around the perimeter of your property.  Reapply these repellents as the label recommends. 

If you yard is free of moles right now, you can skip #1 and just manage their food source and repel them at the perimeter of your property.  Be sure your yard is free of moles before you skip #1 in this process.  If you take away the mole’s food source and he is in your yard already, he will really tear up your yard looking for food!

If all this sounds like too much work, try the mole and rodent smoke bombs or hire a professional!

Always read, understand and follow product label. The product label is a Federal Law.