“Don’t wear that orange sweater to the BBQ” I warned my husband. As a garden writer and speaker, I am paid to tell people what to do in their gardens but my husband wasn’t taking my fashion advice.

In the fall, my “dress for aphid success”  advice applies to everyone planning to spend a little time outside. The reason? In fall, aphids have just grown their wings and they are flying about looking for two things: an orange, yellow or red surface to land on, and a mate. Once all the aphids have found a “red-light” reflecting surface, they meet up with a partner and get on with making new aphids. By the middle of the party my husband, in his bright orange sweater, had become a conversation piece as every aphid in NW Calgary had landed on his sweater and his sweater alone.

Aphids generally lay live young all summer. They do this without wings or mates. This is why aphid affected plants go from a single aphid to hundreds in a week. But in the fall they get wings and take flight. Their eyesight is poor so they are not too discerning. Whether it is a failing plant with pale pathetic yellow leaves or my husband’s orange sweater, aphids lured in and won’t take no for an answer.

Look for colonies of aphids on your plants now and wash them off. They will be hanging off the plant with their feeding beak. Hosing off the bugs with a strong spray of water will break their beaks off. They may be able to crawl back up on the plant but they won’t be able to eat again this season. Spray them again with water in a week and if you are lucky the aphid magnet plants in your garden will go into winter aphid free. And that will give us gardeners a head start next spring. It will not – and I say this without any malice- make your spouse listen to your fashion advice but its worth a try.

Back at the party, my husbands crawling colony of winged aphids became a party conversation piece. It would have been funny, except I had to go home with this man. So he had to take the sweater off mid-party and wrap it in a plastic bag. He was a bit chilly and he was no longer the talk of the party, but he could eat in peace because the fall wasps, it turns out, are interested in eating aphids and they knew just where to get them.