Budworms on Geraniums and Mildew Resistant Zinnias

Question from Bob:
Well, I picked off 175 budworms from 16 geraniums over 4 weeks, and then gave up – they didnt seem to abate at all. Only as this last generation completed their cycle and the weather turned colder, did my geraniums finally recover. Following advice on the web, I think that next year I’ll just plant something else – suggestions for geranium replacements are Angelonia and zinnias; other suggestions were Blue Daze Evolvulus and Firecracker Cuphea. These are all purportedly impervious to budworms. Zinnias I know are sensitive to mildew (mine were devastated by mildew this summer, so suffered from a double hit of budworms and mildew). However, I found some varieties from Burpee that are claimed to be mildew-resistant.

Right now, I have another question for you: can you identify the striking bush in the attached photo? It was taken in San Francisco.

Answer from Pat:
How nice to hear from you again, but I am sorry about your on-going problem with budworms. As I may have mentioned before, if there are no bees visiting your geraniums, you can zap budworms by spraying with Spinosad® early in the season one day before or after the full moon. The budworms come from eggs deposited on the flowers by night-flying moths. In California these moths are not active in winter. Every year, they hatch out and fly for the first time on the night of the first full moon in April. If it rains heavily that night, one has whole month’s reprieve with no budworms, but one must remember the next month to spray with Spinosad® just before or after the next full moon in late April or May. (Spinosad® has the OMNI label of approval because it is an organic spray—not a chemical but a natural product—but despite this fact it kills bees.) If one catches the budworms early in the season then one has less problem for the rest of the year, but if there are lights at night near your plants then the moths might be attracted to the light and lay eggs on the plants.

I truly love zinnias. They need full sun and are well-adapted to hot weather. Yes, with older varieties mildew was a problem, but for a number of years we have had excellent mildew-resistant varieties, including All America Award winners, ‘Profusion Cherry’, ‘Profusion White’, and ‘Profusion Orange’ (these need no deadheading), and compact tall varieties ‘Zowie Yellow Flame’ and ‘Magellan Coral’, (cut off the faded flowers of these). My favorites for cutting and display that I have grown from seed many times are ‘Benary’s Giant Zinnia’. This was the first mildew-resistant variety developed for the cut flower trade about 15 years ago. I never have seen one spot of mildew on these. Benary’s Giant mildew resistant varieties were the finest available varieties for a long time. I tried to spread the word in my books and lectures. My friend the great late garden writer, Christopher Lloyd, owner of Great Dixter in England even grew them in his garden whenever he could get the seeds. You can grow these from seeds as described in my latest book on page 191. I find them easy to grow. Any of these varieties I named are easy to grow.

The zinnia seeds carried by Burpee may be Benary’s if they are tall ones. Park Seeds carries many different colors of mildew-free zinnias and some years ago these were all Benary’s, though they called them “Parks Picks”. (Their mix had too many reds in it, but the individual colors were great—These are what Christo grew.)

Angelonia is easy to grow and so is cuphea. I especially like bat-faced cuphea (Cuphea llavea), a short-lived but pretty plant that bloomed constantly for me and brings hummingbirds. Hummers also love Cuphea ignea and it actually will live many years. I have never grown ‘Blue Daze’ Evolvulus but it would mix well with other flowers and cascade nicely. For a window box or container any of the Proven Winners™ plants would work well and would be easy to grow with few pest problems, though Calibrachoa now gets budworm in many areas, so I wouldn’t choose that.