It certainly won’t surprise the majority of gardeners that insects surpass people several million times and over. While some insects can help some plants, gardeners are all too familiar with the destruction of small crawly critics. These pests can destroy your precious plants in no time and render your efforts useless. The good news is you can stop them from ruining your garden before taking two steps ahead of them. Here are seven garden pests you should look at for.
1. Leafhoppers
Eighth-Inch long leafhopper insects look very harmless. A green insect who doesn’t gather on plants in large numbers, they and hop away as you move closer. What you won’t notice, though, is the toxin these starving pests inject whenever they insert their mouthparts into the underside of the foliage of your flower.
This causes the damage to spread outside the chewed portion of the leaf, appearing as twisted tips and edges of the leaf. This insect can spread the virus of aster yellows as well. Eliminate the garden debris as the season end to avoid overwintering areas. To keep leafhoppers from entering your plants, use floating row coverings.
2. Japanese beetles
The Japanese beetles like the floral petal’s soft tissue, whether it is roses, purple coneflower, or butterfly bush. Such feeding pests will wreak delicate blooms, turning pretty petals into a raggedy, rotting mess.
Throw individual bugs into soapy water to get rid of Japanese Beetles. Japanese Beetles lay eggs in moist lawns, so cut back watering from late June to late July when beetles are mating, check the exact timing for your area with your local master gardeners.
Don’t hang Japanese traps because they’ll only attract more beetles into your garden than you have already. Take care with systemic pesticides, which you apply to soil to reach roots and pass through a whole plant.
3. Aphids
Every time in the spring, gardeners hate the appearance of tiny aphids on honeysuckle, rose, and other flowering foliage. Such insect pests’ sucking action causes stunted growth and deformed leaves and flowers. Nevertheless, by spreading plant viruses and promoting the growth of black sooty mold fungus, aphids add more havoc to the flower garden.
Insect soap and a quick blast of water will be responsible for severe infestations.
Begin the natural way of your aphid battle: You can plant sweet alyssum in the flower garden to attract beneficial wasps.
Also, add cosmos to attract hungry lacewings, and add yarrow or penstemon to attract the ladybugs. Do you know that one ladybug can eat almost 5000 aphids in half their lifetime? Yes, they can. That is why most gardeners encourage them in their garden.
4. Earwigs
Earwigs cause havoc on plants, using their big pincer claws on their backside. They use those claws to catch their prey like slugs, insect larvae, and aphids. They also use it to ward off predators too. Earwigs act in two garden roles.
On the good side, they eat other garden pests, scavenge, and ingest rotting organic. However, when populations are large, they can destroy desirable plants by feeding seedlings, new shoots, and flower petals on the soft tissue.
An easy way to deter earwigs is to place the rolled-up newspapers as traps around the garden. They will crawl inside, and you can shake them into soapy water. By sprinkling diatomaceous earth on the base of the plant can also help you fight earwigs.
5. Scales insects
Insects of this site may not even appear alive at first look. The waxy coating on the bugs that acts as a protective shield makes them look like lichen or other natural growths on plants.
Under this waxy cover, however, the scale insect is very much alive, feeding on garden plants all through the growing season and on houseplants throughout the year.
Damage emerges as stunted growth, yellow spots on leaves, leaf drop, and sooty growth of the mold, which thrives on the honeydew of the scale. Scale control: Get rid of affected branches and leaves that harbor the insects.
Handpick the insects; this is a feasible option if the pests are low.
You can also use soapy water to get rid of scales insects.
6. Garden Slugs
if you’ve ever seen holes in your vegetables, they probably because of garden slugs. Through chewing holes in the leaves and forming slimy tracks over plants and pavers, Garden slugs make their presence known.
They are the bane of hosta fans, transforming pretty hosta leaves into lace with their non-stop chewing. Combat slugs overnight throughout the garden by positioning boards or burlap bags.
Before dawn, slugs can crawl underneath, and you can brush them into a bowl filled with soapy water. Slug traps, a toad, and a stable ground beetle population can also help control the slugs.
7. Borers
Borers are an evil pest, well… probably the wrong choice of word, but you get the point. Borers can destroy from the inside out of your flowering plants.
In the flower garden, the worst borer is the iris borer, which will tunnel through a whole iris rhizome, leaving bacterial rot in its path.
Whether you find sawdust material around the base of your irises or ragged leaf margins, you should be concerned. Needle prick holes in the iris leaves are the signs of tiny caterpillars infiltrating the leaves and making their way down into the seedlings.
In the fall, discourage borers by removing iris leaves, which provide a habitat for borer moth larvae.
The systemic pesticide Merit or the nontoxic Garden Shield spray can be applied in the spring.
In conclusion, gardening is fun, a healthy habit, plus it is best for the ecosystem, especially when you do it right. However, due to pest infestation, gardening can be discouraging, particularly when your crops are not reflecting your hard work.
Before planting season, it is best to call your professional pest control company like go-forth.com to inspect the soil and get rid of pests that can cause damage. When the soil is larvae and insects free, you stand a chance of enjoying a plentiful harvest.