I've noticed a TON of bugs lately, good, bad and UGLY! I thought I'd start a post for us Texas gardeners to help identify good vs. bad, or just plain old observations. I hope everyone adds pics to this :)
Noticed this walking stick (megaphasma dentricus) the other night. He (she?) is quite plump compared to some of the others in the area..
I went to the Wildscape today and found the the bark of one of the lovely Smooth Sumac had been chewed off completely by grasshoppers and it was dead. They were also working on others.
Have you been having trouble with grasshoppers too?
I haven't seen more bugs but have a lot of damage to plants this year. Even my carnivorous plants are showing damage which is not the norm for me.
Love that walking stick though!
I love walking sticks! I used to pick them up and let them walk all over me, but these guys with the turquoise hues are actually very evasive! I pick them up and they seem to get aggressive.. Although I hear they won't harm me, I still chicken out and put them down.
I HATE GRASSHOPPERS!! With a vengeance! They eat most of my flowering plants to nubs and still I plant. Sometimes they are so relentless, I wonder why I even try to fight them. They have completely annihilated my corn.. I'm going to have to pull it. I posted these in the veggie forum, but since you asked.. behold what was going to be my yummy sweet corn.. Bastards!!
Saw this scorpion the other night. He is holding a cicada and if you look closely you can see the cicada's eye bulging! Eewwwww! Lol
Also, call me crazy, but it looks like the scorpion has reflectors on his segments in the second pic. Wonder what that's all about??
grasshoppers have been eating my dahlias. Since the birds won't catch them and I've been home, I started catching and feeding to my hens. Going to spray some dishsoap water on the dahlias tomorrow to see if the hoppers like the taste.
Well, so I guess I am not the only one with grasshopper problems, it is very disturbing.
I never knew they were such a pest until we moved out here to the booniesl! They make it hard to grow anything at all. Supposedly they aren't this bad every year, but it's been 4 back to back years of grasshopper shenanigans. Maybe the drought is making it worse?
I think that is a very strong possibility?
From experience, I think that grasshoppers are worse during drought. Back in the mid 50's we had a severe drought in Missouri. I was about 10 and the grasshoppers were so large that they scared me to death. Would just strip everything. My grandpa had a big bird dog that would catch and eat them. What we called tobacco juice would squish out all over. Yuck. Hadn't thought about this for a long time but the days were good in spite of the grasshoppers.
Haven't seen an extraordinary amount of bugs here in the Austin area this year except for aphids.
This message was edited Jul 10, 2014 8:51 AM
I haven't noticed anymore bugs then normal, maybe a few less. BUT a few friends of mine have had a terrible time with grasshoppers but they have them every year....they aren't worse this year. Just showing up at a different time.
Which grasshoppers? There are several kinds and sometimes y
it helps to know what they are. Ft Worth and drier areas do get hit worse with them than the wetter areas, but I can tell you now Ark is having fits with the grasshoppers too.
Grasshoppers and locusts tend to be cyclical and while I've seen a few small to medium ones this year, I saw very few at all in my yard (Mesquite, TX) over the last three or four years. But then, I've noticed very few bugs and spiders, good OR bad, this year in my plantings. I've noticed this primarily because I like to spend some amount of time per week with my camera and macro lens taking pictures of the little buggers and they're just not there.
Back to the grasshopper thing, I tend to think that the closer you are to "undisturbed" areas, that is... those areas where the grass has grown taller than your average maintained yard, you're going to have far more hoppers than your average well maintained, i.e. short grass, areas. Drought and rainfall amounts also measure into the equation...
At one point 8-10 years ago, I actually treated all my flowerbed areas with a biological grasshopper control (Nolo bait?) and while it did seem to work over the next couple of years, I had an epiphany one evening that while I was treating for specific critter issues, no one else in the neighborhood was treating for anything at all so all their plant attacking critters were coming to my little green oasis for an all you can eat buffet. Nowadays, I might treat a fire ant bed when it gets big enough to spot but have learned to live with most of the other critters, hand picking them when necessary or using a spot spray of pyrethrum.
This message was edited Jul 13, 2014 12:24 PM
Well I'm optimistic that once the drought lifts, the grasshoppers won't be as heavily concentrated in my area. Very rural here, it can get pretty crispy around midsummer, so the populations flock to my green plants. I've heard about something called tempo, haven't read up on it yet though.
When I'm not looking, grasshoppers are prob. the bugs that are chewing on my Turks Cap. But it's a large plant and I don't mind some holes in the leaves. I'll only mind if the plant is stripped of all leaves. One day I actually spotted a hopper on a leaf and much to my surprise, I actually was able to catch him!
I have a lot of birds that flock to my feeders and are also eating me out of house and home. I wonder if they're also munching on some of the bugs. Mostly only notice skeeters.
As much as I dislike Facebook, I have joined some of the Texas gardening groups. FWIW, people in Dallas, North Texas, and Texas in general are all complaining about grasshoppers
Grasshoppers seem to be behaving themselves in my yard. I see one or two, but they don't appear to be doing any damage to my plants. I am good and tired of the mosquitoes, though. I hate to spray myself with Off simply to spend 5 minutes in the flowerbeds. But if I go outside and stand still for any length of time, they are all over me. I hate mosquitoes!!!!
Carla
(aka Loonie1)
Loonie- do you plant basil plants anywhere in your flower gardens? Mosquitoes dont like them and I have less skeeters around mine..cept in the grass when its wet...
I just watered my EBs and a hopper wondered out of the fill tube. Lol
I have a lot of big yellow grasshoppers. I've caught some to feed to the hens, but I also am letting my older hens and 1 rooster wander the garden and hunt as much as they like. I believe it is helping
Becky, those scorpion pics--YUCK! I have a childhood memory of being shown a movie at school (2nd grade or younger) that involved scorpions & a dead child. Sounds crazy but that's all I remember. Terrifying! BTW, I know scorpions glow under black light so maybe that has something to do with the second pic.
No hoppers here in the Houston burbs. Had a few stink bugs, hornworms & those black & red/orange bugs are out now. I can never keep it straight as to which ones are the assasin bugs or the bad ones. The ones I've seen seem to be solitary.
Yup the skeeters are thick too. Must be all this rain.
Lisa, I wish he would have drowned!!! Lol!
My buddy says her chickens go nuts on the hoppers, but still can't keep her veggie garden clear of them. They also annhialated my MIL's sunflowers.. completely defoliated!!
Bariolo, what the heck is up w/ that movie?! I think about some of the things we did in school that would NEVER be allowed now. Makes no sense to shelter our kids any further, when meanwhile the world is becoming so desensitized and obnoxiously immoral. Luckily, it's a little "safer" out here in the country. We lived in Keller for a few years, and the schools were beginning to see more drugs, theft, violence, glad we moved! (Oops, rant! Lol)
What were we talking about? The scorpion.. Lol! Yes! They fall from the trees onto our roofs, then down from the attic and drop into the house through any opening, ie vents, and I even see them in my light fixtures. A friend had one sting her twice in bed! I got stung once and it hurt real bad then a few hours later all gone.. I thought it would be much worse.
A few more creepy crawlies.. need some IDs also..
1&2, a praying mantis. I just love these lil guys!
3, huge (moth?), I tried to get an object in there for scale and he flew away before I got the chance! He was at least 5 inches across and was looking for shelter at 6 am yesterday.
4, leaf foot bug? Or is he a bad plant-eater?
5, another mystery bug (beetle?). I almost picked him up to get a clearer shot, then I saw has huge pincers!!
I call #4 a stink bug. They suck the juices out of our precious tomatoes. BAD BOY! Never saw a praying mantis around here.
I don't think I could handle scorpions dropping from the sky...
I had 3 different praying mantis in my hair on Thursday while I dug weeds. they are good bugs, worse they do is eat a butterfly now and then.
Yes, I have seen them do that and it isn't pretty.
But I have seen them eat aphids and hoppers and grapevine skeletonizing moths and that is a pretty sight indeed, and they eat mosquitoes too. They are eating machines
I understand we have to take the bad with the good, all in all I know they do a good service for us.
Look for scarites subterranus beetle and see if it resembles your 5th bug
Well, the stinkbug onslaught has now begun in my area. I just hope that it won't be as bad this year as it was last year. I also spotted some flea beetles on the eggplant, but not much damage done as of yet. If they do get out of hand, I' m prepared to deal with them with an organic spray that has worked well in the past.
This message was edited Jul 19, 2014 4:07 PM
Becky, is the color accurate on that pic of the scorpion? I can't recall ever seeing a green scorpion. They're usually a kind of yellowish -brown color around here.
Cactusman, what organic spray do you use for flea beetles? They can be pretty bad around here sometimes.
Kitt, you got it.. scarites for the beetle. And I have never heard of a flea beetle before, but they have been around my tomatoes, and photos of the damage they do seem to match what I thought was a fungal issue.. Why oh why do there have to be so many pests in my garden!? Next year I'm buying beneficial nematodes..
Cactusman, the green color scorpion is due to flash.. it was nighttime. They are usually tan like a dead oak leaf.
Cept scorps can glow phos in dark. You live close to The Bug Thicket and it sends out the overflo- hoppers for the whiterock prairie of the caprock, are just norms. My bugs burrow down into liriope and leaf cover and keep growing. Thats why we scalp liriope to the ground and expose it to sun every winter. Now Pine beetles (2 kinds) and army worms are what bother me- since they find houses to eat if the pines are gone...
While we are talking bugs, does anyone know what this orange cat is? Good or bad, so to speak? They are eating the heck out of my Scutellaria, although it's on my ajuga also.
Gulf fritt bf? Cant focus enuff to see
Maybe Actias luna on the orange cat? Mature and ready to pupate?
http://bugguide.net/node/view/705715/bgimage
I think you are right Becky, good catch.
I've seen more grasshoppers in my yard this year than ever before. They have ravaged my hollyhocks, but only minor damage on other plants.
Mosquitoes are horrible as usual. We use skeeter dunks in our pond & fountains, but they are still everywhere. It just dawned on me yesterday that the adults are probably still drawn to the water, even if the dunks keep the larvae from maturing. I'm with you, Carla, I hate to spray with Off just to go outside for a few minutes, but if I don't, I get devoured.
The sad thing about the dunks is they hurt the rain frogs and hummers. Of course its usually wet enough down south that the larva mature in the lawn itself. I just gotta get more basils, salvias and sages growin...
I have a ton of Grasshoppers (giant green and yellow) ones and huge Black and Red ones now I am seeing smaller green and smaller brown ones. The small green ones fly ARG and the small brown ones can jump 3 ft. I wish I could have chickens :(
I also use mosquito dunks. They are a life saver as I catch 25 buckets of rain water so I can use it before using the hose. They are safe as a few of the buckets have tadpoles in them and they are not phased. Mosquito are drawn to the water but also to the shady areas of my yard.
I agree with being out 5 min not wanting to be covered in off. I am going to have to try basil. Is there anyone in particular?
Kit really I have used them atleast 3 times in the same bucket with tadpoles and they are still alive and swimming around. Have tiny baby toads everywhere. I have used them for years.
This message was edited Jul 23, 2014 9:50 AM
