Plantita Saturdays: Saving My Garden!

The past few weeks have been challenging. We were surprised with the invasion of higad in our garden. I immediately sprayed neem oil, but belatedly realized that it takes time for it to take effect. By the time we found the best solution to get rid of the pests the damage was already done. All my citronella plants died and the new seedlings were all eaten. When the numbers finally dwindled new pests started to come in -- slugs and millipedes. 

The most important thing I learned when I dealt with the higad infestation is don't just use one solution. Research and try different solutions until you find the best one. The best one for us wasn't spraying neem oil everyday or squishing the critters (it became messy). We were wary about using fire, so Sweetie did the opposite -- a water bucket. I added a teaspoon of neem oil to it and they died in less than 10 seconds. Add hydrogen peroxide and that will take care of slugs and millipedes. Those two are sturdier than the higad so they need something stronger. 

Proud plant momma! I planted this from seed! :)

I try to use organic solutions only because there are a lot of birds in our area, so I'm sticking to neem oil and the tanglad+oregano concoction to spray the leaves. My efforts have paid off and my blue ternate which I planted from seed has been blooming more. The flowers are also bigger than what I normally see. I'm glad I actively battled the pests because I could see that the plants I managed to save are all fighting back also and recovering nicely.

The last living pothos from Singapore. Decided to plant them in soil because they were not growing.
They don't seem to like the water and honey mixture here.

Writing this post mainly to remind myself of what I should do when it happens again next year. Research is key. There is so much to learn from gardening. Each plant has it's own needs. There's no one size fits all solution, so I like the challenge. My goal is to have a mix of food producing plants, plants that would protect other plants and I hope I'll finally be successful in growing flowering plants (to make my Mom proud). 

To motivate me to do better at gardening, Saturdays will be plantita updates! I'll post more specific tips on our gardening blog.

#BeKind #StaySafe