Continuing the series showcasing our sad landscaping at home, our beautiful Turk’s Cap at the kitchen table window is now even prettier with it’s infestation of whiteflies:

The black mold allows the perfect backdrop for the bright white insects, which feed on the underparts of the leaves.  At about the same time the cobbler got around to noticing the damage, the whiteflies celebrated their 15th generation of living off the poor plant, which is turning black, refusing to bloom, and screams for help all day.

Whiteflies usually like tropical plants, potted plants, tomatoes, and cotton.  Or plants stuck in the ground under a roof eave and crammed between the corrugated metal walls of a veggie garden and the cement siding of a house.  Plants needing phosphorus are extra susceptible, and apparently, ones that get hardly any exposure to sunlight or circulated air and whose outer branches frequently get slept on by Jake the Dog. 

So last night, the cobbler sprayed some homemade garlic-pepper spray, which is probably too concentrated and will end up killing the plant, to make the bugs mad.  This morning, a round of organic fertilizer to boost nutrients and minerals.  A few repeat treatments and a couple shovels of compost around its base should pull the Turks Cap out its comfy coma and fling it back into the painful realities of the real world that it suffers through every day.   

Oh, and while he was at it, the cobbler planted some lettuce seed in the garden with his kid, just in case the bugs run out of stuff to eat.

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