Why are the petals falling off my HollyHocks.

The individual blooms on a hollyhock only last for a few days - I doubt that ants are having any effect other than to milk aphids.

Spray for the aphids - if you've got ants, then they're doing exactly what Moongrower says - they sort of protect them on the plant to encourage the production of honeydew from the aphids, which they love. This means you may have large colonies of aphids which do, after all, suck the sap from your plants.

Seaweed solution spray is an organic one that will make the plant taste foul and the pests hate it. This also ensures no other good lil' bugs die.

I spray seaweed solution on my roses periodically. I was advised to by David Austin Roses. They told me it would enable trace elements to be absorbed into the plant, and would help to prevent black spot also. I have never tried it for aphids. I may give that a go. I've heard that aphids can evolve resistance to pesticides quite quickly.

You are right Jonathan, its the same with headlice, I was reading something the other day the more and more we use various pesticides the more the little critters get used to them and then dont have any effect

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Perhaps we should spray seaweed on childrens heads. Then they can smell of the sea. That would be funny.

I think I will stick to tea tree oil for the kids!

much better Mageth hehe

i grew up by the sea was nearly always in it... still used to get headlice
:o(

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