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Bulb Pest and Disease Control
Stop Bulb Pests and Diseases in Their Tracks
The aim of all control measures for bulb pests and diseases are using good gardening practices designed to prevent and control infestations or infections.
Bulbs are surprisingly resistant to pests and disease, far more than many other flowering plants. Still, you should stay watchful. Frequent inspections and scouting through your landscape is a must.
Good Garden Practices
Good gardening practices reduce the chance of pests and diseases taking hold in your bulb plantings or in surrounding flowers, shrubs, or trees.
Prevent Weeds.
Native weeds host insect pests and fungal spores. Mulching your beds, covering them with a layer of compost, or planting low-growing ground covers helps prevent their seeds from germinating and makes pulling weeds easy [see: Mulching Landscape Bulb Plantings].
Uproot and compost any weeds that do sprout while they are young and easy to pull.
The heat of vegetative decomposition in compost piles kills most pests and weed seeds. After composting, garden waste becomes rich organic compost suitable for your garden beds.
Organic compost contains beneficial living organisms, and it provides major and trace nutrients to feed your plants. It also is a great soil conditioner for improving soils that are too clayey or sandy.
Keep Gardens Clean.
Rid your yard of fallen leaves, plant debris, pruning litter, and dead foliage. All these are favorite hiding spots of slugs and snails, two of the most significant bulb pests.
Leaves and garden debris shelter eggs, larvae, grubs, and adult insect pests, as well as nematodes and many plant bacteria, viruses, and fungal spores.
Plant Only Disease- and Pest-Resistant Bulb Species.
Daffodil and other narcissuses are examples of bulbs that have natural defenses against fungus, insect, and animals.
Plant Only Healthy Bulbs.
Good growers vigorously check bulbs while they are still in their growing grounds. Most bulbs sold by garden stores and nurseries, therefore, are in good health [see: Choosing Healthy Bulbs].
Check them carefully, and choose only bulbs free from pests and disease.
Avoid bulbs with cuts and nicks. Once planted, protect your bulbs during planting, cultivating, and lifting. Keeping bulbs healthy helps stop fungal disease spores from entering the bulb.
Control Pests Before They Damage Bulbs.
Sometimes, even in well-maintained gardens, pests gain a foothold.
Ants, aphids, Japanese beetles, various borers, mites, mollusks (slugs and snails), harmful nematodes, thrips, whiteflies, and wireworms all feed on bulbous plants.
Learn Bulb Disease and Pest Symptoms and Controls.
Avoid bulb species are susceptible to botrytis, mildew, and viral diseases. Knowing what to look for is an important skill for preventing diseases in your bulb plantings [see: Bulb Pest and Disease Solutions].
Practice Integrated Pest Management (IPM) Like the Pros.
Most horticulturists practice Integrated Pest Management, or IPM to stop and prevent future infections and infestations by pests and diseases [see Integrated Pest Management, below left].
Integrated Pest Management (IPM)
The goal of Integrated Pest Management (IPM) is to limit damage to the garden while protecting the environment and maintaining a healthy ecological balance in your garden between its insect pests and the natural predators of those pests.
Pests reproduce more rapidly than do predators, so maintaining a healthy population of predators assures that pest insects and bugs are kept to a minimum.
Integrated Pest Management Explained
IPM is a series of good garden practices that are used one after the other as needed.
IPM first calls for frequent inspections to discover outbreaks before they become widespread.
Inspections that turn up early pest or disease outbreaks receive treatment with hand controls—picking, crushing, washing with plain water, and the like—to eliminate the condition.
Use Non-Toxic, Environmentally Safe Controls First
Only if these hand controls fail, the next step is to treat plants and soils with biological measures. These include releasing ladybird beetles to eat aphids, applying beneficial nematodes to the soil, or spot spraying solutions containing harmless-to-people-and-pets Bacillus thuringensis (BT).
Difficult to manage pests and diseases occasionally need mild, environmentally protective controls. such as household and insecticidal soaps that smother or dissolve pest tissues. These sequential steps usually control all but the most difficult insects and diseases.
Safe Use of Stronger Control Measures
Only the most severe, sustained outbreaks should be spot treated with pest-specific pesticides and fungicides.
When severe infestations and major diseases make this necessary, choose a control that lists both the pest or disease condition and your specific bulb species. Always read and completely follow all package directions for mixing, diluting, timing, frequency, and method of applying the control.
Whenever herbicides, pesticides, or fungicides are applied, wear protective clothing and a respirator. Apply the agent exactly as its package directions state directly to the infested or infected plants—avoid widespread applications—and dispose properly of any unused solution or empty containers as indicated by the manufacturer.