Skip to main content

How To Care for your Pear Tree

I noticed earlier in the year that some of the leaves in my pear tree was limp and most were starting to turn black, like someone had been playing a prank and setting the tips on fire. I noticed these green diamond-shaped bugs (aphids) on the tip of most of the leaves and I correctly figured out that those were responsible for my sick tree. I also noticed there were a lot of ants going up/down the tree trunk.


I sprayed the leaves with a strong stream of water and manually removed some by hand. This however didn't fix the problem. I talked to Richard, a friend of ours who owned his own landscaping and gardening business. He said that I should apply diluted dishwater soap in a spray bottle and spray the leaves with aphids on them, manually scraping off the aphids with my fingers. He also suggested stopping the ants from gong up and down the tree by applying some type of glue close to the base of the tree, but ensure the substance doesn't get to the bark by first wrapping the area with a plastic sheet. I didn't have that glue so I used a CLI Wasp & Hornet Killer solution which worked just as good. 



After the first day, the ants were gone and the areas that I applied diluted dishwater soap to also started to wilt. This was temporary however and by the second day, the aphids were gone and my tree was on its way to full recovery. I still decapitated some of the dead branches however as those were beyond repair. I saved the branches with pear fruits on them and it's looking like we may still be able to see them all come to fruition. Get it? Thanks Richard for helping save our tree.


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

How I Fixed My In-Sink Garburator

Our kitchen garburator had been out of order for the past few weeks and I thought I would give it some tender loving care this Christmas Holidays because we'll need it. It's a Mainline Model 1900 and has been very dependable for the past 6 years. This happened a few times before and all I did was run a wooden barbeque stick through the serrated edges of the garburator blade to dislodge whatever gunk was in there and that did the trick. It didn't this time and I was ready to spend some money.  I was tempted to call our plumber and have them fix this for me (here take my money) but I thought to myself, how hard can this be. I was also tempted to take the whole thing apart to clean whatever was causing the blade to not spin but I'm sure I would have lost a few fingers or two if I did that. What did work was using something everyone already has lying around the kitchen - a butter knife. Take the butter knife and find the gap in the blade to insert the tip of the kn

Frustrating experience we had with a Honeywell baseboard heater

Here is a review of a baseboard heater for use in your basement if you are in the market for one. I just thought I would write one up because of the hassle I had to go through with my initial choice for a heater. I bought the Honeywell HZ-515C baseboard heater at Canadian Tire for $59 back in August 2008. It was for the basement suite where our friends Gabriel and Natasha are. It worked well for medium to large rooms and was quiet which was a great selling feature. However, by April 2009, the unit had stopped working and I was forced to get it replaced. The replacement warranty was 3 years for these units and it was only 9 months of use. The replacement unit was fine until it stopped working again in March 2010. This was almost a full year of use but I wasn't impressed at this point. I went back to Canadian Tire and wasn't surprised to see that they no longer carry this model. Even if they did carry it, I would probably just pick a different model for the same amount which is w

Success Story Renewing my Okta Maintenance Certification thru Examity

 The Okta Certified Professional certification had to be renewed every 2 years and my maintenance exam was due on July 30, 2023. I was confident about passing the exam because I had just completed an HRIS mastering project and Okta. However, the exam format was unnatural using DOMC (discreet option multiple choice), so I had to study and review a fair bit of material to prepare.  After studying a decent amount, I scheduled my exam for Tuesday, June 27, 2023. After hitting the next page, there was an error so I hit the back button and tried again. I was able to get it scheduled but didn't know that the exam date was actually scheduled for Sunday, June 25, 2023, for some reason. There was a confirmation email stating that but of course, I did not read it because I was focused on the Tuesday, June 27th date. I continued cramming until Tuesday but realized in horror that I was a no-show when I logged in 30 minutes before the exam at 10:30pm. If you have ever done offsite exams, you kno