Need some quick advice. Something is making lace of the leaves of my seedlings and cuttings that I brought into the house. I have some insecticide soap spray already. Can I use it tonight just to try to save them?
Anne
lace leaves
yeah, but do you have a pic?
Yes you can.... If that doesn't work you can use diaomaceous earth. Brugs have a great way of coming back.
debnes
My dbf took his camera home Wed. but will be bringing it back tomorrow. I will post pics then. And would you believe that I have some of the earthworm doo left over from what I put on my hibs this last summer. I will spray before I go to bed, and post again tomorrow. I just wanted to get started on something right away.
It's alright Anne, as soon as you said lace leaves.. I had a picture already in my head. Webworms took a toll on my Brugs this year. I am going to dress their beds with some DE for next year. I didn't this year because I already had butterfly cats around... Didn't want any to get on them.
debnes
There were some tiny green inch worm things on some of my little seedlings that got brought into the house. They were eating the undersides of the leaves so that the tops were transluscent in some places making them very lacey looking. Maybe that is what you have. If so just pick off the worms and wash the leaves off real good in the sink to remove any other eggs etc. Worked for me.
The bad news is my son felt sorry for some of the little cats and put them in a jar and has been picking off the bif brug leaves from outside to feed them! LOL, can't win thay way for sure, but its nice to see a teenage boy with some sensitivity so I am going along with this :P
I like his style angel! Takes a special heart to care like that. I raise butterflies here. :-) Webworms were so numerous my Brugs didn't have a chance to bloom this year, though they did survive severe defoliation. Next year I will have to head them off at the pass though, because I really miss my Brugs.
debnes
I found big cats on all of my outside brugs. I caught them in time fortunately. My Dr. Suess, Peach and Pink are all three blooming their little heads off, in spite of temps in the upper thirties at night.
Anne
Do webworms turn into itty bitty butterflies??
I doubt that they have even that usefullness
they turn into moths
Actually WWs turn into pretty white moths. The problem is they make so many broods and spend most of their life as cats chewing on and webbing anything green. This year was a particularly heavy one.
http://davesgarden.com/guides/bf/go/1643/
I have those tiny inch worm lookin things.. They are not hairy like the ones in your link. The way you can find them is the new growth will have tiny traces of what looks like dirt.. then if you look close, the leaves will have tiny holes.. then you can find the tiny yellow/green inch worm looking cats... if you don't get them off.. the next day you will be able to find them easier.. the leaf will be all but gone and the "inch worm" will be an inch long.. and may bore into a bud or a branch.. Then they get HUGE and make swiss cheese out of the plant and even sometimes devour the entire top growth.. stunting the growth and causing a Y which is not natural and damages the plant. They got so bad here, they were inside blooms eating the stamen and ovary out of the blooms! I hate cats.
The worm is most likely the tobacco bud worm. Here is a picture and information on this pest.
http://www.ext.colostate.edu/pubs/insect/05581.html
Butterfly cats are host specific... ie, Monarch cats eat Milkweed. Sulphur cats eat Cassias and Sennas, Brazilian Skippers eat Canna, etc. With good management you can't even see where the plants were eaten. Some cats are really great! There are some great ways to manage them.
Removing inchworms is a good idea Z they aren't butterflies and will eat any kind of soft foliage. But not all cats are bad cats. A Monarch will not crawl off the Milkweed (a beautiful plant, I might add) and eat your Brugs and other good plants. They are very well behaved. You'd have to get to know them to appreciate them I suppose. If you're ever interested in having some 'good' cats, let me know.. I will be happy send you some seeds for something beautiful to fly around on your flowers and pollinate them. :-)
debnes
BINGO! Thank you Kay!!!! These things make my life a living hell... Nothing is more frustrating than using some very precious pollen to pollinate a brug only to see a cat eating the reproductive parts... wasting my good pollen!!
When I was a kid I had tons of monarch cats in the back yard.. I kept all the neighborhood boys out so they wouldn't try to catch them!
edited to say: I used BT every week and it didn't phase them. I found some stuff that had pyrethrins in it and it works better than BT. It's "Fruit and Nut tree spray" It's 70% Neem with Pyrethrins.. I don't have any other caterpillars around here.. so I'm not hurting the good ones. :)
This message was edited Dec 2, 2007 8:05 AM