hi everyone, I'm a relatively new gardener living in Toronto, ON, with a south-facing huge window that gets lots of light. Earlier this year I bought two lovely citrus trees each about 2-3 years old, a Murcott Tangerine (Tangela) and a Meyer Lemon (Liz Lemon). When it got colder a month or two ago, the lemon dropped a lot of leaves, but I googled, saw some posts on proper temperatures and adding christmas lights to keep the roots warm, and she's doing much better now! There is a ton of new leaf growth, which is promising. My tangerine has just started blossoming (I'm really excited about this!) and after doing a little reading, I see that Murcott tangerine do not require cross-pollination, so I'm trying to manually pollinate (I just grabbed a small paintbrush and pretended to be a bee -- should I be doing anything else?). Anyway as I got closer, I saw that the pharaoh ants that live in my building have noticed my tangerine, and I'm very concerned: 1. The ants are all over the tiny blossoms (presumably eating nectar there). Is this a problem? Are they harming the blossoms/plant? 2. There appears to be some scale on the leaves (brown insect-ish ovals) that the ants are also all over. From experience with house centipedes, I know that these ants sometimes eat other insects. Are they helping or harming the plant? I bought some neem oil for the scale but am still waiting for it to arrive in the mail. Should I let the ants take care of it instead? I'm perusing the forum now for more info, but had to post just in case this problem needs to be remedied today! Please feel free to point me toward other threads -- any help is so appreciated!
I wouldn't worry about the ants consuming the nectar if that's all that they do. Unfortunately ants also feed off the honeydew excreted from scale insects which they are smart enough to farm on plants. The ants should be dealt with in addition to the scale. I use insecticidal soap against scale. Hand-pollination should suffice as flowers are likely few at this time. You may want to consider sonication or buzz pollination as described in the thread Buzz pollination for coffee blossoms? | UBC Botanical Garden Forums when the need arises or just out of curiosity. By the way, I like how you used wordplay in naming your trees.
Thanks very much for your helpful response, Junglekeeper! I'll get some insecticide soap and take care of the pests. And thank you for that link -- it looks like a very interesting thread! I'm checking out the video now. cheers!
You should be aware the soap spray is ineffective against the adult scale (which should be physically removed) and has to be repeated a number of times, as indicated on the label, for it to be effective. By the way, do you know which grower the Murcott is from? I don't think I've ever seen one available in my area.
Cool, thank you again for the tips. I'd better get removing that scale right away. The grower I bought my trees from was this one: http://www.floraexotica.ca/indexE.htm You have to email to find out what they have in stock. They're based in Quebec, and shipped via Canada Post -- took about a day, I think? I was pretty happy.
