Plague. Not that one
Posted: January 23rd, 2022, 10:39 am
I've been recently hit by a plague of leaf-eating nasties - I've not had this kind of problem before. They look just like dried bits of leaves, but when you squish them, they're juicy. They've been absolutely devastating - I lost half a couple of trees overnight, it seemed, and after I sprayed them with Confidor I lost most of the rest of the leaves! They spread rapidly, and can kill very quickly.
They seem to prefer crab apples, English elms and Japanese.maples, and the small-leafed natives like Kunzeas. I've fairly much defoliated the exotics, but the only real control has been to pull and squash each bug individually - on the first day that took two hours! They are still turning up, 5 or 10 a day across quite a number of trees, and I know they will explode again if I lose control. Very nasty indeed.
I will be trying the RichGro BugKill granules (=Confidor) to try to poison the sap that they are eating, but I'm not entirely hopeful. I'm usually fairly peaceful, but if anything attacks my trees, IT'S WAR!!!!! There's nothing in flower until spring - no bees will suffer.
This is how they look on the tree - a perfect disguise against bird-attack! And this is a close up: I suspect that the particularly wet, mild summer may be behind it - that or the Russians are invading!
Keep a good watch,
Gavin
They seem to prefer crab apples, English elms and Japanese.maples, and the small-leafed natives like Kunzeas. I've fairly much defoliated the exotics, but the only real control has been to pull and squash each bug individually - on the first day that took two hours! They are still turning up, 5 or 10 a day across quite a number of trees, and I know they will explode again if I lose control. Very nasty indeed.
I will be trying the RichGro BugKill granules (=Confidor) to try to poison the sap that they are eating, but I'm not entirely hopeful. I'm usually fairly peaceful, but if anything attacks my trees, IT'S WAR!!!!! There's nothing in flower until spring - no bees will suffer.
This is how they look on the tree - a perfect disguise against bird-attack! And this is a close up: I suspect that the particularly wet, mild summer may be behind it - that or the Russians are invading!
Keep a good watch,
Gavin