AusBonsai

Hello,

I have had an infestation of lace bugs affecting all rhododendrons and azaleas in the garden, and consequently went round yesterday spraying each leaf with confidor. On the underside of the leaf there are many black spots. Are these lace bug eggs? If so, will the confidor kill these as well, or should I wipe them off manually in order to make sure they won't reappear?

Thanks for your help

James

James, Confidor works well on Azalea Lace Bug, you need to spray in spring and summer to prevent leaf damage that is visible on tour trees now. The black spots you talk about, I think they are excretia of some kind (faeces).

Cheers,
Mojo

Once the leaves are damaged, there is nothing you can do except wait till the now ones grow to rplace them

Confidor will stop any reinfection tho

I usually do mine in Spring as preventative and they usually are OK for the rest of the year

Ken

Thank you for your replies.
I was going to wait until spring before using confidor, but I recently bought a few more azaleas and rhododendrons and when I checked the leaves the other day I found lace bugs had already started attacking these as well, so I decided to start straight away and continue on spraying next spring. I realize that the leaves are permanently damaged, but other than that the plants seem pretty healthy. Would you advise a heavy prune next spring to get rid of most of the damaged leaves?

I hate using heavy duty chemicals like confidor, you will find lacebug attacks rhodo/azalea during dry periods, spraying the leaves with water both sides will help a lot, lacebug does not like moisture.
Craigw