whoa, cala...dadgummit!! i have bigger problems than i thought! first, i have more of those critters downstairs, but some look kind of different?
you know, i went back to read what tonny sent earlier, and it has to be those scale things, cuz some are soft and slimey looking like little white slugs, and some are crusty and hard looking...other than that i can't see much of what they look like cuz they're so darn small!
This message was edited Monday, Sep 30th 4:17 PM
can you see the webbing on the flower pods? boy, if they're eating my flowers inside...well, i'll git 'em...don't know how, but i will, by golly!
it gets better...there's these lines of web everywhere in the garden, and i just magnefied a shot, and if there aren't little microscopic worms out there!!!
and what the heck is this? it kinda looks like a brown garden spider, but it didn't move when i touched it, so maybe it's dead, and anyway, they don't make cuckoon looking things in the leaves like this, do they?
man, if these guys kill my nashi tree, i'm gonna be soooooo mad!!!!
This message was edited Monday, Sep 30th 3:14 PM
This message was edited Monday, Sep 30th 4:04 PM
okay, now i feel like there are bugs crawling all over me!! i had no idea i had so many critters out there!! here are gobs and gobs of what i think might be black widow babies, or, the black widow is trying to sneak up and eat whatever kind of babies they are...they are so small i cannot see them, except i know they're alive. there are 30x this amount on another leaf, but i could not get close enough to take a pic when i saw the black widow!!
sorry to hear about the bug problems u have. apparently, Cala is the only one who can give u info on how to get rid of them bugs.
for aphids, i wait till it get cooler, spray them with 50/50% alcohol and water. that one works for me. wish Cala would be here soon enough to give u pointers.
that's okay, cuz i've gotta find my keys right now, or i'll be riding my beach tricycle to the post office to mail out some cuttings of my allamanda!! but, hey...i'll get to eat the baby ruth on the way...i hid it in the sendai chest (where i'm supposed to put my keys!) see ya!
Meiyu, you have a really bad infestation of mealy bugs. That's what the white things are. They will make your leaves deformed, but the jasmine looks like some kind of spray damage, or something ate on it when it was still a leaf bud. The black flecks could be honeydew, waste from bugs molds and looks like black specks. The baby spiders were probably eating the mealy bugs, ants will move them around and "herd" them.
If you are organic gardener, use alcohol and water with a squirt of soap. You can also use neem oil.
If you don't mind getting out the big guns, you can use Orthene, Thiodan or something like that. You will have to spray under the leaves to get them, and you will have to spray once a week for about a month.
Good luck, I'm still fighting them. I finally realized where mine came from, I bought a basket at Kmart, it was on sale, and it was infested with mealy bugs(I didn't notice till it had been in the greenhouse), I thought I'd gotten rid of them, but no, they came back bigger and stronger.
yes, i thought i was rid of them also, but i guess they just moved from the hibiscus plant i'd bought (on sale, too), or planted eggs? it was a while before i noticed they were back. i guess anyone i sent plants to should check really good, huh? perhaps i should email everyone? i sure hope the spiders eat them up for me...looks like lotsa babies out there!! thank you, cala!!
cala...help!! (please?) i have questions again...
1. will it hurt any of the plants or the soil if i just mist my entire garden with the alcohol/water/soap solution?
2. are there any bugs (other than spiders) that will feast on these stupid mealy bugs?
i'm about to bring out the nuclear weapons and file an insurance claim to start over!! you just can't imagine what's happening to my beautiful garden, and i'm having mealy bug nightmares!!!
Meiyu, yes I can imagine. I don't think the alcohol will do much good and can spot lots of leaves, making them ugly and possibly fall off.
Here is a site that mentions 2 beneficials that eat them. I know lady bugs eat them too, I put baby ladybugs on a coleus and they cleaned it up in less than a week. http://www.biopol.nl/UK/MealyBugs.htm
Safers insecticidal soap is good to use on them, the soap washes off their protective coating and they die. Beware though, this can burn some leaves.
If you don't mind using poison, go get some Orthene and spray it, being sure to get under the leaves. You don't want to treat the ground with a systemic, it's more for pots. The residual is too long on some pesticides that are systemic.
thanks, cala, for your help on this. i really don't know what i should do.
i found out that my mandevillas on the balcony were completely infested, and getting to the bottom of the leaves is a trick (you should see me hanging upside down off my balcony to reach them...hahaha). anyway, i guess what's happening is that the leaves and flowers are dropping dead from up there, bringing more bugs daily into the front gardens. i got so mad last night that i (and the captain, at this point) decided to have a bonfire at about 3am, burning 90% of my hardy hibiscus, 'red eye' along with some mandevilla and brug leaves, on my driveway!! that oughta scare them away...the ones that were left, anyway..hahaha!! the good news is, i found my blue ginger lily (dichorisandra thyrsiflora) trying to sprout underneath the bush that i'd burnt in the fire (arsenic will be pleased to hear)!!!
anyway, all is well for the moment, the brugs are blooming and i see baby blossoms everywhere, so there's still more to come, and my gingers all grew three inches this week!! the solution isn't killing my garden, thank goodness! just the captain and his lynching mob ideas...
i'm emailing my aunt and uncle (insectlore.com - i'll bet you'd love this site, cala!!!) and ordering another lady bug house and babies (i had one at the other house, forgot to bring it with)...she said she can send out praying manthis eggs in january, too....my favorite pet bug as a child!!
thanks again, meiyu
Meiyu---Get lacewings too, they are aphid lions!!! Get the eggs, not the adults if you can.
