It's possible that I'm seeing tick deterrence by asters. Is there such a thing?
I don't know what type these are, I thought Philadelphia Fleabane, but that's not right, as they have no basal rosette of leaves and the flowers are not turning lavender at all. They come up straight from the ground, and stay white. Average height at the moment is around 4- 4.5 feet. And they are THICK in this yard this year. Butterflies, hover flies and small bugs adore them.
Despite their height, which would make them excellent tick platforms, I have seen zero ticks on them. I have killed ticks on the 3 foot tall grass stalks, and on the bushes at 4 foot heights, but none on the asters. Being as they are obviously related to the Fleabane, I'm wondering has anyone ever heard of asters being tick bane?
They are tall, rowdy, and very hard to get coherent photographs of. These were the most useful pictures I managed to crop out of the chaos.
Lots of little flowers
Attempting to show growth habit
Utterly amok, everything white in this picture is these asters
"The future is something which everyone reaches at the rate of sixty minutes an hour, whatever he does, whoever he is." C.S. Lewis
"When the whole world is running towards a cliff, he who is running in the opposite direction appears to have lost his mind." C.S. Lewis
Dennis Goyette wrote:Get some possums.....possums eat over 200 ticks a day and if a tick bites a possum and falls off it is sterile. Stop eating possum stew =O
Not to thread-jack, but where would one get possums? (Not exactly a regular stocking item at Wal-mart )
Check areas where they are naturally. They are all over the country, not sure if any one raises them for selling. Heck, you can get just about any exotic animal, why not a possum? Maybe Deputy Dog knows.
Dennis Goyette wrote:Get some possums.....possums eat over 200 ticks a day and if a tick bites a possum and falls off it is sterile. Stop eating possum stew =O
That may not actually be the case.
In 2009, there was a study where opossums where trapped in cages and ticks put on them.[1] From this very unnatural study came the claim that opossums were tick vacuum cleaners. However, about 10 years later there was a study of the stomach contents of wild opossums that found minimal tick parts in their stomachs [2] suggesting that the opossum's behavior in the wild is quite different than what was observed when they were trapped in cages.
Since Pearl has such an abundance, may I suggest a little experiment?
Take a bunch of the flowers +/- leaves and blenderize them, strain them enough they'd go into a sprayer, and give them to a friend who's having difficulty with tick issues. Let them spray liberally plants in an area and see if the ticks seem to avoid the smell/presence of aster liquid.
Now, I recognize there's no guarantee that aster liquid will have the same effect as real aster plants, but it was the thought I had.
An interesting concept here...
Mom was at an exercise class and all the ladies were griping about how bad the flies are this year. I asked the neighbors, oh yes, stupid large amount of flies. We have had 3-5 in the house.
Well now. That's VERY interesting.
I needed to mow where some of the asters are, so I picked the stalks and tied them in very sloppy bundles and put them by the doors. Can't hurt, might be very useful. Hard to say. Might at least give the spiders good web spots for eating anything that wants in.
I took pics again the other day, trying to show the growth habit, haven't gotten them uploaded yet. These are definitely not the Symphyotrichum pilosum. Not shaped the same, wrong bloom time. I think there are some of those around, they are familiar, but these are not them. Still haven't had time/energy to try to ID them correctly.
Pearl Sutton wrote:An interesting concept here...
Mom was at an exercise class and all the ladies were griping about how bad the flies are this year. I asked the neighbors, oh yes, stupid large amount of flies. We have had 3-5 in the house.
Well now. That's VERY interesting.
I needed to mow where some of the asters are, so I picked the stalks and tied them in very sloppy bundles and put them by the doors. Can't hurt, might be very useful. Hard to say. Might at least give the spiders good web spots for eating anything that wants in.
I took pics again the other day, trying to show the growth habit, haven't gotten them uploaded yet. These are definitely not the Symphyotrichum pilosum. Not shaped the same, wrong bloom time. I think there are some of those around, they are familiar, but these are not them. Still haven't had time/energy to try to ID them correctly.
Hmmm... if it works that well, maybe I should start making little aster 'leis' to put on Charlie, for potty trips, chore treks, & walks!! It would be so much safer than almost any commercially available tick treatments, and faster, and maybe safer than even using the essential oil blend I make and so often forget to apply to her!
Hmmm... if it works that well, maybe I should start making little aster 'leis' to put on Charlie, for potty trips, chore treks, & walks!! It would be so much safer than almost any commercially available tick treatments, and faster, and maybe safer than even using the essential oil blend I make and so often forget to apply to her!
I have ZERO idea if it's working or not. I might be totally off base here.
They DO have a different bug collection on them than other flowers in the area. Today I saw a flock (? what's the word?) of bees on them, the domestic honeybees have not been interested at all. The little hover flies have been though. These looked like bees, but flew like flies, and were working the flowers as a flock. Haven't seen them before, on anything. No clue who they are, or why they are interested when domestic honeybees are not, nor are big bumble bees. Or where they came from, for that matter.
They are being odd flowers. I really don't know what to think about them.
Possible ID pics...
Hoping someone wiser than me can figure this out ;D
Flowers have a LOT of rays
Stem is branched, stem is not hairy, not square like a mint, but not round either. Not sure what to call it.
Leaves have these weird little leafettes at the base of most leaves, they don't grow bigger.
Leaves are not quite smooth edged, but almost. Definitely not deeply serrated. Super shallow serrations?
Got this shot with a better background. They grow in crowds. That's maybe 3-4 plants.
No basal rosette, flowers do not change color, all are very white. Bloom started maybe mid-May?
Current height: tallest are about 5 foot 6 inches tall in my garden beds, most are about 4 feet tall in the yard dirt.
Tried to get pics of the weird bees. They were having none of it. You know how honeybees ignore you when they are busy? These guys are paranoid, no ignoring going on. ANY motion and they fly. They won't land if I'm in the area, they moved way from me consistently.
"The future is something which everyone reaches at the rate of sixty minutes an hour, whatever he does, whoever he is." C.S. Lewis
"When the whole world is running towards a cliff, he who is running in the opposite direction appears to have lost his mind." C.S. Lewis
Ok, so what I'm seeing, so far, is that it definitely looks to me like a member of the asteraceae family, in the fleabane branch. I think a close-up, well-focused shot of the stem in cross section, would help with discerning the stem type, but I know you're struggling with that. The cool thing, though, is that typically, when plants are as familially as close as these appear to be, they *usually* boast the same actions, though sometimes, with certain aspects a little more - or less pronounced - and there can easily be hundreds of 'sisters'. This is so close to what we're seeing as fleabane, that I'd be hard-pressed to think other than it being at the very least, a sister variety, that can effectively be used in the same ways. That said, I'll try to do a bit more digging into its lineage, this evening.
Stems. They do have faint hairs. I didn't know this phone could take pics this close up that come out well.
More ridgey than I thought. Cool way to look close at them!!
I may be wrong, or not understanding all the words in the description (because I don't know them all) but the reason I said no to Daisy is the lack of itty leaves at the base of the real leaves. It's really consistent, 80% or more of the leaves have one, and it's like that on all of the plants.
The bloom time is right on daisy. It says 1-3 feet, I'm seeing minimum of 4 feet in bad soil, up to 5.5 so far in good soil. Not sure they are done growing :D
Ok, I've spent a huge portion of the last... 2.5 hrs (only taking a few minutes here and there, to get dinner going - easy prep from freezer stash, lol) looking into this, and I'm going to go out on a limb, here, and say I'm about 98 - 99% sure it's daisy fleabane. There are approximately 200 varieties in the USA, alone, with tiny variations in the stem fuzz characteristics, coloration, and leaf shapes/sizes/formation, including the characteristics Pearl has listed, as well as branching patterns and more.
Its aerial parts have long been used as a diuretic, tonic, and for respiratory issues. There is a lot of anecdotal evidence for its use as an insect repellent, but that somewhat comes into question, because it also draws many pollinators, and no scientific studies have been done. As permies, I think most of us will likely agree that just because a plant draws some insects does not mean it doesn't repel others.
As well as MK's, above. There are a couple others I looked into, but I've lost track of which ones they were, lol. Duck duck go doesn't track my surfing, so I can't even look at my history.
It's blooming all over now in the Ozarks along with queen anne's lace...we've always just called it flea bane but I agree with 'daisy fleabane' as an ID. Asters are mostly late summer and fall here.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erigeron_annuus I like it and let it be most places and if it's in the way I cut it for mulch.
Have not noticed any anti tick super powers as we are in a much less ticky area than years past but that's good to know!
"We're all just walking each other home." -Ram Dass
"Be a lamp, or a lifeboat, or a ladder."-Rumi
"It's all one song!" -Neil Young
Not my area, but I thought I'd add these thoughts:
1. there have been a number of comments from people concerned about invasive plants and animals about how if you get a cross-breed happening, things get a little weird. It sounds like others have this - or similar - in your area, but are the one's Pearl's reporting something potentially new? (example - people breeding wild boar with domestic high-litter pigs and now we've got a wild pig explosion happening in places!)
2. I'm sure I read that some flowers have little tubes that are too small to be honey bee friendly. I've been reading more about how many plants are actually pollinated by other insects than bees and particularly moths.
I certainly agree that a plant/flower can attract some things while repelling others. Even within my domestic ducks/chickens I notice a difference in the foods they like vs not so interested in.
Jay Angler wrote:...there have been a number of comments from people concerned about invasive plants and animals about how if you get a cross-breed happening, things get a little weird. It sounds like others have this - or similar - in your area, but are the one's Pearl's reporting something potentially new? (example - people breeding wild boar with domestic high-litter pigs and now we've got a wild pig explosion happening in places!).
Quite possibly - and yet, with 200+ varieties, just here in the contiguous 48 of the USA, I know I'm not going to go through all of them, to figure it out. ;)
An update: Most of the plants were dying off or removed for being in the way by late June. Some are still going (it's Sept 9 as I write this) some are dried but still in place. I hung clumps of removed plants by each exterior door.
We DID have some weird weather in spring, really warm and wet very early, then it went back to hard freeze for another few weeks. That may have affected bugs as well as all the plants that were killed by it.
BUT. This year I saw under 5 ticks (normal 150-200 in the gardens, esp when I'm not keeping them weeded, which I wasn't.) The cat reported no fleas or ticks (she's got long fur and is miserable with fleas most years.) The neighbors and people in town said "oh the flies are bad this year!" but we had maybe 10 flies in the house from May to late August, then I think we had a hatching, had about 15 in the house all of a sudden, and now it's back to no flies again.
Hard to figure out what the data points mean, but I'm inclined to let these run amok from now on. They seem at least related to low bug problems, they might not be the cause of that, but they are at least coincidental.
Fascinating!
Something I read on the net used the words "persistent superstition" about whether they deter bugs or not, but I guess I am tending toward being superstitious, if that's the word for it. I think they looked at "do ALL bugs avoid these plants?" and the answer is no, they don't, so therefore it's not real. But even if they annoy some bugs, especially the more irritating ones, that makes them worth study in my book.
Pearl Sutton wrote:I think they looked at "do ALL bugs avoid these plants?" and the answer is no, they don't, so therefore it's not real. But even if they annoy some bugs, especially the more irritating ones, that makes them worth study in my book.
I've read that Black Soldier Flies (which don't bother people) tend to repel houseflies from laying eggs/feeding in areas they've claimed. So I think it's quite possible that your observations are correct - the plants seem to discourage the insects you particularly want discouraged, while not discouraging other insects which, beneficial or benign, aren't identified as "problems" in your books.
We're having a particularly bad wasp year. For years we've had the variety that builds mud nests around the front of the house. This year with the appletrees totally berserk with fruit, and being fall when the wasps are attracted to sugary fruit, it's been quite concerning. Twice a day I pick up apples if I can't get someone else to. I try to jiggle the fruit before grabbing it to tell the wasps to leave, but they literally carve a cavity under the skin and can erupt dozens of wasps!
But *none* of the mud-house wasps have stung me. I try to kick a few of the damaged apples across our farm drive so they're away from the traffic area and still available to the wasps, but the bottom line is that the mud-house wasps aren't anywhere near as aggressive as some other wasps I've met. I keep trying to tell people - choose your pest. I can live with these guys, and the variety that lives around the metal shed. I can't co-exist with the aggressive types. They're territorial enough, that I choose to leave the ones with a good track record, even if this year they're being a little annoying and anxiety provoking at times!
Pearl Sutton wrote:It's possible that I'm seeing tick deterrence by asters. Is there such a thing?
I don't know what type these are, I thought Philadelphia Fleabane, but that's not right, as they have no basal rosette of leaves and the flowers are not turning lavender at all. They come up straight from the ground, and stay white. Average height at the moment is around 4- 4.5 feet. And they are THICK in this yard this year. Butterflies, hover flies and small bugs adore them.
Despite their height, which would make them excellent tick platforms, I have seen zero ticks on them. I have killed ticks on the 3 foot tall grass stalks, and on the bushes at 4 foot heights, but none on the asters. Being as they are obviously related to the Fleabane, I'm wondering has anyone ever heard of asters being tick bane?
They are tall, rowdy, and very hard to get coherent photographs of. These were the most useful pictures I managed to crop out of the chaos.
Lots of little flowers
Attempting to show growth habit
Utterly amok, everything white in this picture is these asters
I haven't researched this particular plant but I know that it belongs to chrysanthemum family. This family of plants is anti parasitic due to it's content of Pyrethrins, possibly something else. I use chrysanthemum flowers to make a tea - a very powerful dewormer - hint hint... specially important if you live off grid.
Jay Angler wrote:
We're having a particularly bad wasp year.
I don't know that it necessarily seems like we have more wasps that typical in the area this year, but we had some red wasps build a nest in a bush outside the kitchen window and then found a hole they could get in through and seemed to claim a significant section of our house, especially our kitchen, as their territory and would send patrols to guard it (at least it seemed like that was the behavior we were observing).
Luckily, someone tipped us off that dish soap and water in a spray bottle will kill them - and it works better than I expected. It took us a little while to find where their nest actually was, and if they'd stayed on the other side of the glass I probably wouldn't have even bothered them, but one of them dive-bombed me and stung my foot which swelled up to like twice the size of the other one (I've never been allergic before, but I've got some auto-immune issues so I think that may have played a role) and my wife got stung on the belly while trying to do the dishes... so they had to go.
After clearing out the nest the first time, another set of wasps came back. I guess they smelled the pheromones or something. I dunno. But it didn't take us long to get rid of them that time!
We have had a really bad year with ants though! They're everywhere. In the yard, trying to get in the house to eat the crumbs my kids drop on the floor or the trash in the kitchen, in the garden, killed a little plum tree I planted, ant hills in the middle of our dirt road...
Fleas and ticks don't seem like they've been as bad as they could've been considering how tall we let our yard grow, but I have to say I'm tempted to try planting some "fleabane" after reading this thread to see if it gives both us and our animals some relief in future years!
"Observe the lilies of the field, how they grow: they do not toil or spin, but I say to you that not even Solomon in all his glory was dressed like one of these."
Matthew 6:28b-29
I have them also, HALLS ASTER. I'm wondering about ticks as well. I do know that apparently you can sell the seeds for $1000 a pound and they are good pollinators and they correct your soil
One day a chicken crossed a road and nobody questioned the motives. Thank you tiny ad.
two giant solar food dehydrators - one with rocket assist
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