Mandevilla, Pink Allamanda 'Alice Dupont' (Mandevilla x amoena)

Mandevilla, Pink Allamanda 'Alice Dupont'
Mandevilla x amoena

1001 mealy bugs.

shut up! look at those babies!

They were all over the leaves, disgustomundo! All the leaves looked like that!! Just covered with them. And now I am finding them all over the courtyard. I think the wind blows them all over. I have never seen so many.

Yikes! How horrible! What did you do to get rid of them?

I have been spraying with Neem oil whenever I see them now on other plants in my courtyard. The wind seems to have spread them. They sure love lantana too. Poor me. And poor them. LOL

They attacked my hibiscus and lantana plants: but, not as badly as your plants have ben infested. I had a real battle trying to get rid of them. Good luck to you and your plants.

Thanks so much. I wonder if I killed off what ever keeps them in check in nature. I had the worst mite outbreak of my life this last summer. I had them on everything. We had a very unusual hot spell and it was 15 to 20 degrees hotter than usual. I had mites on every plant I owned and talk about new growth being distorted! I hate using chemicals but I was distraught. I bought a brand new miticide that came on the market, called Forbid. I was thinking it might have killed off more than the mites. I also bought a electric fogger to apply it. I was at war.

Odd I would have 2 such horrendous outbreaks. Though the mealies in this numerous state were not 'on" any bush per se, they looked like they had dropped out of the sky and were just laying on the leaves, many leaves. So odd. I was thinking there must be mealy nests that had burst open releasing them all.

I have had terrible year with insects also due too high temperatures and a severe drought for over a year and a half. I had to resort to chemical pesticides also. In the spring, some kind of weird, tiny beetle was eating all of the blooms off of my plants. I had to spray every day for weeks. They destroyed my sbapdragon blooms, but were not picky about what they liked so they ate evertything. I had to try all kinds of stuff before I won the war with them. You have brugs, don't you? Mine are being eaten up by grasshoppers and various other critters. It hasn't hurt their flushes of blooms, thank goodness. I sprayed them one time for mites. The new leaves and bloom buds were distorted a bit. Only 2 flowers were a bit distorted. I haven't sprayed them after this occurred. Its the first year I have had them in the ground (2 year old cuttings) and they have had 3 or 4 flushes since August. Love 'em to death. I hope they survive the winter. in the ground.

We had terrible mealy bugs here! My daughter lives only 5 minutes away and they totally took over her shade garden- she lost several plants. I used neem oil and then on some used dilute Ivory liquid w/ H2O- that seemed to work best for me but it took lots of follow up.

I do have a few brugs, Htop. LOL. Broad mites really distort the new growth and it is harder to get rid of them. You can't see them as easily as spidermites so by the time you figure out you have them they are all over. I hate them.

I have heard grasshoppers eat a lot. I only have a few of those thank goodness. I do have those yellow with black spot cucumber beetles. On I hate it when they eat holes in my flowers. And of course snails and slugs. LOL. Remind me, why do we garden? LOL

Have you tried that Raid for flying insects? I know it sounds funny but that stuff is pretty good. And it is no muss no fuss preparation. I spray above my plants while I hold my breath then run away as fast as I can! I am getting old so it gets tough to hold my breath for long. LOL

Mulch those brugs well and I would take some cuttings just in case you have a real cold winter. Sometimes it takes awhile for them to come back up. I wonder if you fertilized around where they were with a weak solution even before they come up in early spring, if you would get them going faster so you get more flushes. They are such hungry green things.

Oh April, it is the follow up that I hate. LOL. I am good for a couple of times but after that I want it to be solved. I am a lazy gardener for sure. I use Neem oil a lot too. Though this summer I found if you use it too much you can really cause failure to thrive for some plants. I think ODing on the oil clogs the pores of the plant. I learned that the hard way. I was spraying them way too often when I had that bad mite attack and not waiting to see if my last spraying had worked.

Lets hope for a bug free 2007 season for all of us!

I also found that some of my plants, that I thought were so tough, didn't like being sprayed w/ the neem oil! Follow up was part of my down fall.

LOL, I am picturing you spraying, holding your breath and running! Then picturing myself trying to do the same, LOL, I am probably not that coordinated.

Follow up is always my downfall in life. LOL

I hate sprayig chemicals. I always seem to get more on me than on the bugs. I do hold my breath and I do run. I still feel like I nuked myself though. LOL

aprilwillis, Neem oil has damged my plants before also. When we have our worst infestations, it seems is when it is boiling hot which is the worst time to use Neem oil. One should spray the plants when it is the cool part of the day, but when is that in Texas in the summer? :o) You have to be able to see the plants to spray them ... by 10:00 AM it is already really hot. I tried spraying Neem oil at dusk. But ... in order for it to not harm beneficial insects (including lady beetles, lacewings andorius bugs), it has has to driy quickly. Spraying this late may have harmed the "good guys. Neem oil does not kill on contact without totally saturating the plants.
Too much Neem oil can be detrimental to the plants as the photo-synthesis process is slowed due to clogging the plants' stomata. I gave uyp using Neem oil after my lantana leaves burned. Any of the oil-based products are tricky to use in areas that gave high temperatures And even more tricky when the humidity is high and it doesn't dry quickly. I have used it in the spring with greater succees; but, I only use this kind of solution when the infestation is really a serious one ... and there have been many instances of heavy infestations this summer and fall.

Kell, I thought I had remebered seeing some of your great photos of your beautiful brugs. Mulching for the winter and taking cuttings are my next chores. I had not taken really good care of the brugs when I first received them because I had quadruple heart bypass surgery right afterward. So, they struggled as I did for a while. I repotted them this year and then prepared the beds for them. I finally planted most of them in the ground in the first part of July which was very late in the season (very hot, hot, hot). I have a few still in containers that I will need to put in my greenhouse. What do you use to fertilizer yours? I amended the ground soil with a compost that contained turkey manure and 2 of the larger cuttings have grown to the tip of the roof. I did have to give a couple of them epsom salts a couple of times to green up the foliage. I will need to fertilize them next spring. It is difficult here because if the plants receive too much fertilizer, they will burn in the heat when I have to water a lot. Sooo, I have been a bit cautious with fertilizing them even though I know they are ravenous eaters.

I am assuming that broad mites cause the brugs' leaves to become pale due to tiny dots on them like the spider mites do. Admitting my ignorance ... duh ... I don't know what broad mites are. I haven't tried the Raid for flying insects, but that is a great idea for the grashoppers. Thanks for the suggestion. I have used an aerosol Sevin spray in desperation when non chemical solutions failed. It has worked well for eradicating some of the "bad" guys. I had so many "bad" guys that I had never seen before and didn't know what they were that I had to try different kind of ammunition. There have been so many different kinds of moths and butterflies in stupifying numbers (more than I have ever seen before) that I hate to use anything that will harm them or their eggs. I may reget my timidity ... their offspring will probably devour everything. One can't have perfect plant leaves and expect to have lots of butterflies and moths ... sigh.