CLOSED: Yikes! Will these hurt the crape myrtle?

These are all over one of my young crape myrtles. Are they BAD?
I have two pics. They range from about 1/4 inch to mayb 1/2 inch long.
THanks,
Deb

..and...

These are Asian Ladybird Beetle larvae (ladybugs, not really bugs...) Harmonia axyridis. They won't hurt your plants, obviously, but one could argue that since they're replacing our native ladybird beetles, they're not great, at least in the big picture. They might not eat all the same pests that our native beetles eat. Time will tell, I guess.

Thanks, I know I've never seen these before - and they weren't there a couple of days ago. I'm still shell-shocked from fighting off the Japanese Beetles, so I saw these things and went into a small panic! :)
Thanks again for that ID!
Deb

This message was edited Jun 29, 2008 8:27 PM

They're eating all the aphids on your crape myrtles! :-)

Pass some this way, I have an aphid problem on my grape vines. LOL I had those on some crepe myrtles I had in CA a few years ago, I got all kinds of different colored ladybugs out of them, some yellow-orange, some orange w/ black spots, some black w/ orange spots, some solid black, some solid deep orange, it was weird.

I don't recall seeing any of those bugs around here yet, but it is good to know what they are so when I do I'll know not to go crazy and try to 'nuke' them.

However, just for your peace of mind and future reference I would like to point out that around here - and, of course, S'ville is just outside of Charleston - it is virtually impossible to kill a crepe myrtle. But for their beauty and fact that they provide shelter and food for the birds, they are otherwise practically weeds here - good weeds, mind you, as I have several very large ones myself. It is the one tree that we can abuse and mangle to our hearts content and it will always grow back and always bloom. In my backyard I have a small one (8ft or more now), a volunteer seedling, that cannot lawfully live in the drainage easement where it has planted itself. For the past few years I have repeatedly cut it down to the ground, yet it just keeps growing back a little taller each year and no matter how much I abuse the thing it even manages to bloom each year. Heck, one year I even sprayed it with Roundup. That was 3 or more years ago. It has tripled in size since then.

If you won the battle with the Japanese Beetles, I need to know your secret. Every year, the deer eat all of the roses in the front yard and the Japanese Beetles gobble up all of the ones in the backyard.

Ceejay: I looked them up after Claypa ID'd them and saw that they are aphid eaters. So they can certainly stay!

Scutler: I may have overstated my concern. I was pretty sure they wouldn't actually kill that Crape Myrtle, but this one is a volunteer that I transplanted to its current spot 2 years ago. This is the first time it will bloom and I was afraid these were critters that would eat up the blooms and new growth.

Speaking of which, I haven't won the Japanese Beetle battle. I do a nightly patrol of their favorite foods, pull 'em off and squish 'em. They're the only bugs I kill without remorse! I still loose a couple of canna blooms every day, a couple of roses the next. I pull them off the peach tree, the Crape Myrtles, Cuphea, Calla Lilies, etc. Their lacy handywork is everywhere. I can't believe the birds don't eat them - they seem like easy targets.
Deb

Deb,

I figured if you had been in the area any length of time you would likely know how hard those crepe myrtles are around here but thought I'd mention it just in case.

Thanks for the info about the JB. I lack the stamina to even do a decent job of pulling them off the roses alone. My Crepe Myrtles are some 20+ ft tall so pulling them off the crepes really isn't feasible. I believe that I have lost this battle.

The Clemson Ext folks told me that spraying with neem appears to interrupt their breeding cycles and may help to control the population. Use of milky spore, beneficial nematodes, or even the harsher chemical controls designed for grub control (on the grass/soil, of course) should also help to minimize the numbers in future generations. These things won't help much for the ones that migrate to your yard from elsewhere in the neighborhood but may prove beneficial in conjunction with the nightly patrols.

Good luck with those JB.

I've been told that milky spore works pretty well. I quit putting anything out to drive away moles 2 years ago, since I'm told they eat the grubs. My neighbors tresure their smooth green lawns though, so they do all they can to keep down the moles.

I only have 2 Crapes small enough to "patrol". :) Maybe I'll try Neem. I do hate to use chemical insecticide, since so many other "good" bugs visit the same plants...but it's tempting!

Short of a trained insect-eating bird, I don't know what else can be done. Sigh.

Deb

I have a few wheel bugs taking care of some of my sunflowers, but I need more. One of those wheel bugs was eating a mud dobber yesterday. For slow movers that's pretty fast catchin'