Aphid busting

Last week I posted about a couple plants that are having some problems and I learned that my Drosera anglica CA x HI had aphids. I had a lot of things going on that week and just didn't have time to address it. Yesterday though, I noticed some of the little buggies on my Drosera collinsiae Faryland and I knew I couldn't wait any longer.

A heavily afflicted plant.

The aphids just recently appeared on this one.

"Computer, zoom and enhance."

Barry Rice says aphids are cute.

Let's get real up-close with the little freeloaders.

Whatever you say Barry.

Little sapsuckers.

Luckily aphid treatment doesn't (usually) require gnarly pesticides. The first line of defense is just isopropyl alcohol, applied with a cotton swab.

A great reckoning is upon us.

Judged and found wanting.

Welcome to your doom.

After some consideration, I decided to trim the flower stalk from the D. collinisae, since that's the only place I saw the aphids, and also to extract the gnarled mutant stalk from the D. anglica, since I suspected there were probably aphids hiding in the cracks.

Desperate times, desperate measures, etc.

I'll be checking in on these plants over the next couple weeks, since apparently aphids are prolific egg-layers and you need to treat repeatedly to make sure they actually get wiped out. Luckily, I do have backup D. anglica plants in case the worst happens.

This is from the cuttings that I thought had died!

This is the Summer Batch.

No backups of the D. collinsiae, but luckily I caught that one pretty early.

For now they're in quarantine. More updates as events warrant.

Fingers crossed.