HAWAI'I GARDENS
Direct hit with diluted simple green zaps Chinese rose beetles

• A sampling of the plants up for sale

By Heidi Bornhorst

Q. I've heard that you can use diluted simple green as a "green and friendly' way to control insects. Do you have any information about this? Chinese rose beetles are munching my native plants like Ko'oloa'ula, ma'o hau hele and 'ohi'a lehua.

A. Barrie Moss of Aikane nursery on the island of Hawai'i ran trials on her precious and well-grown native plants and her recommended dilution is 20:1. No stronger than 16:1 is necessary, not because it will harm the plants, but because it is a waste of SG.

You can spray any time of the day, but in order to be effective on rose beetles you have to directly hit the bugs. Since it is not a poison it will have no effect if just ingested. You must spray the solution on the insect itself.

Generally, rose beetles mate during the hour before sunset above ground.

That would be the most efficient time to spray. Give it a try and let us all know your results. Rose beetles also devastated Moss' ko'oloa'ula before she used simple green to dissuade them.

Knowing that they are most active mating and munching at first dark, this is also the time that you can repel them with lights.

Lighting up your plants for an hour or two will get rid of a lot of the pukas. You can also catch the rose beetles by hand and feed them to your pet tilapia or blue gill.

I like to keep a spray bottle of diluted simple green (clearly labeled with permanent marker) and one of peppermint soap. I just squirt some on insects, slugs and other unwelcome critters. When I encounter them I squirt some solution and "clean up my garden."

Plant sale

Plant lovers will want to clear their calendars tomorrow and Sunday and head to Thomas square for the Friends of Honolulu Botanical Gardens annual plant sale.

All kinds of wonderful plants will be offered.

One of the thoughts for moving the sale out of Foster Botanical Garden is that parking will be easier at Thomas square.

Enjoy the trees and fountain in this urban forested city park. Admission is free and runs from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday, and on Sunday from 9 a.m.-3 p.m.

Heidi Bornhorst is director of Honolulu's botanical gardens.

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A sampling of the plants up for sale

Some of the special and new plants for sale Saturday and Sunday:

• Mini fragrant lavender anthurium.
• Large allamanda with white to amber flowers. They are from Brazil, collected as seeds by Leland Miyano and Roberto Burle-Marx. These lovely garden plants are quite drought tolerant. They are grown by Nii nursery.
• Semi-dwarf Fairchild mango sweet, no fibers, good fragrant aroma.
• A new lilikoi 'noel special' deep orange color with good juice, rich flavored.

There will be a fine selection of carnivorous plants. Rod Oshima grows them in Kane'ohe. He will share:

• Sundews
• Red Venus flytraps
• Sarracenias — the pitcher type
• Pitcher plant — Nepenthes with 12' long pitchers from the Malaysian peninsula.

Most carnivorous plants are terrestrial (ground dwelling), living in soils with high organic material, except the pitcher plant, which makes a fabulous hanging basket plant.

• White hunakai — a morning glory with very large flowers.