Japanese Aralia is being eaten

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mtnrode Redwood City, CA Sep 19, 2009

Two beautiful 4' plants have been in our Sunporch growing well for a year. Now the leaves are being destroyed by some unseen pests. There are 1/8" pliable round black droppings all over the floor. There are some white spots on leaves and some eaten away except for the veins. I sprayed the leaves with soap insecticide today. Does anyone know what pests might be attacking the Aralias? I want to save the plants but don't know how.

Thank you, Donna

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ecrane3 Dublin, CA(Zone 9a) Sep 19, 2009

Can you post some pictures showing the damage? Some shots of the droppings might be helpful too. It's often pretty difficult to ID what bug is causing the damage though unless you can catch some in the act (I would check the undersides of the leaves if you haven't looked there, and also try looking at night...if you haven't seen anything on them during the day maybe there's something eating them at night)

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mtnrode Redwood City, CA Sep 20, 2009

This is what the damage looks like to the Aralia. I appreciate any suggestions you might have about a pesticide.

This message was edited Sep 19, 2009 5:39 PM

Thumbnail by mtnrode
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JoParrott Richland, WA(Zone 7b) Sep 20, 2009

Kinda looks like it could be grasshoppers- especially the description of the droppings-

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ecrane3 Dublin, CA(Zone 9a) Sep 20, 2009

That's my thought too--I've seen more grasshoppers this year than usual and that does look like damage they'd do. Maybe caterpillars too, but they don't tend to move very quick so you likely would have seen them in action if that's who was doing it.

Adult grasshoppers can be tricky to control, and especially since this is on your sunporch I'm not sure how well ventilated it is or how open it is to the rest of the house, but you'll want to be careful with the pesticides that you choose. Here's an article that lists some different control measures http://www.ext.colostate.edu/pubs/insect/05536.html

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mtnrode Redwood City, CA Sep 21, 2009

The pest on the Japanese Aralias is a green caterpillar (many) - and around white webby stuff on some devastated leaves. We managed to get the plants transported outdoors where I could better examine them and anything I sprayed would not poison our indoor cats. Now I must find the best spray to target caterpillars and use it asap.

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