We have been on severe water restrictions (currently NO hoses even connected to a tap) and for the last couple of years, when we have been allowed to water, it has only been hand held and for one hour per day. Consequently, I haven't watered any of my agapanthus.

I bucketed the entire output of a load of washing onto them but they didn't spark up. Eventually got into them and removed all the dead leaves and cut back the drooping leaves almost back to the neck of the bulbs and discovered that something is living there.

There's a lot of grey powdery stuff between the leaves, very much like mildew but can't possibly be, and very little insects which look something like rows of little slaters. I've never had slaters actually breeding in my plants before.

I'm not sure what I've got but I suppose the stressing of the plants because of lack of water has made them more suspectible to insect attack. I have several clumps of blue aggies and they are fit and healthy.

I've sprayed the white aggies with pyrethrum twice and also tipped a few more buckets of nice soapy water over them. But I wonder if it is actually getting into the problem. It's right down where the leaves emerge from the bulb.

Can anyone identify my wildlife and suggest treatment.

I lifted the entire plant, sectioned it up into healthy pieces and replanted them in another area. The soil I thoroughly drenched with an insecticide product. Would have left it open for the birds but there was just to many and to deep for control. I didn't want the larvae moving out into near by plants.

I then sprinkled a systemic insecticide on the big clumps of aggies near by, to ensure control of interlopers. The sectioned plants have taken some time to recover but are now showing better growth with the application of blood and bone. Although it has taken almost a year for them to recover.

cheers Mrs B

I'd always thought that slaters were nice little creatures who quietly turned dead material into humus - dead material on the ground, that is.

For the last 15 years I have not bought any poisons, never spray my plants. I think that if you start spraying it creates more problems in the long run.

I started to get a bit of decent green growth - and then we had a couple of nights of -5/6 degrees with very heavy frost.

No chance of moving into healthy soil. I don't have any!! I usually have lots of little hoppy, crawly things living under the mulch but they seem to have disappeared. Lack of moisture I suppose.

I'm pretty much a newby to this prolonged drought business. Have never experienced problems with agapanthus before, or with slaters. I also used to have heaps of millipedes but they are few and far between as well. It's a good thing the skink population has decreased - they wouldn't get enough to live on.

It's all terribly demoralising. I wonder sometimes if it is ever going to rain again in my lifetime.

I've just noticed it happening again, and there's the white stuff etc. It looks like mealy bug to me, happily chomping or sucking away inside the clumps.
I cant see slaters, but maybe they'll be in for the pickings later.

Does anyone have a way of eradicating them bugs in inaccessible places?

I also cut off all the dead and dying leaves so the growing tips (the bug nursery) were more exposed. Will have to wait until warmer weather to see how successful the treatment was. Because of our heavy frosts, all aggies look pretty sad (deadish) in winter.

If it ever rains agains I'm planning on dancing naked in the garden (there's a nursing home across the road with a secure ward - I'll have to be careful).

I hadn't realized things were so dry in the east (head's been under a rock, obviously) It must be a shock for the gardens if you're used to regular rain. The aggies'll pull through any drought, but how're the other plants going?

The self seeding annuals like love-in-the mist and johnny jump-ups have decided not to return annually. On the bright side, the pink evening primrose, which I planted in a rash moment, has disappeared.

Everything is suffering - have had a small crop of figs for past two years but the figs are very small. Same with persimmons. And some plants definitely didn't like the washing water.

Town water is down to about 20% of capacity so not sure what is in store for coming summer. We live in a strange place where the storm clouds pass over us and pour somewhere else. Sometimes we get a little shower, enough to muddy the dust on the leaves, but not long enough to sink into the ground or heavy enough to run into the dams.

But I have developed an interest in succulents. So all is not lost.

I wish I could get away with a spade. I dug up a few of mine last year (uni student son had a spurt of gardening fever) and broke the maddock handle!! Total waste really. By the time he got back to his rented house, the spurt had fizzled out so he stuck them all in one hole (original plan was right across a kikuyu infested front fence border) and then he decided to move house!

Shouldn't complain - at least one (out of three) knows how to dig a hole and stick a plant in. And he's only in his teens so there's still hope. Mind you, if beer cans would sprout, he'd have the whole yard dug over.