Organic Insecticide: Winter Wash

Plant & Fish Oil Based Insecticide

Winter tree wash is mainly used against aphid eggs, and any pest that lays eggs in your woody trees. These eggs hatch in the spring to attack the tender new shoots and a bad infestation takes a toll on your precious fruit tree or ornamental tree.
This organic pesticide works by attacking the waxy compounds that make up insect eggs and carapaces.

How to use winter tree wash

Watch our quick video on applying winter wash.

Note: this spray will scorch leaves, so it is only suitable for winter use, after trees have lost their leaves and before their buds have begun to open in early spring. Protect surrounding grasses or evergreen plants.

Winter tree wash is a contact insecticide - you must spray it directly onto the eggs for it to work, so you will need to prepare a safe ladder or use a cherry picker to spray big trees.

Each bottle of Gardening Naturally winter tree wash contains 500ml of concentrated liquid, which you will dilute to make 10.5 litres of spray by mixing 50ml of concentrate with 1 litre of water. Mix only as much as you need for each application.

It is hard to estimate how much you will need per tree, the main thing is to cover all the bark really well and spray into all the nooks and crannies where branches meet the trunk. A light application will have little effect, you need to lay it on thick. As a very rough guide, a large, mature fruit tree will need up to 15 litres to spray thoroughly (1.5 bottles of concentrate).

An established bush or half-standard tree that has been growing for 3-4 years and developed a good head of branches will need about 3 litres, so 1 bottle of concentrate should do 3 young trees.

Use a coarse head on your sprayer.

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