Post category: Pests

 

Slugs and snails are the most serious pests of flower plants of all types. Most damage is done in late spring and early summer to young plants and new shoots, especially susceptible plants such as hosta and ligularia. Precautions will often be necessary.

Greenflies cause curling and stunting of foliage, and pass on virus diseases. Control may be necessary. Caterpillars of various types eat holes in the leaves of many flower plants. Unless the damage is extensive, which is unusual, control is not necessary.

Capsid bugs are little beetles that eat the very young leaves as they push out of the ‘bud’. Dahlias and annual asters are especially vulnerable. Earwigs and woodlice are usually responsible for ‘mystery’ damage to foliage and flowers. No pest can be found because feeding is often nocturnal.

Leatherjackets, vine weevils and cutworms are soil inhabitants that attack the flower plant roots or stems at ground level. Eelworm are microscopic pests of flowers. If plants are stunted, ‘bloated’ in the stem, or fail to flower, eelworm may be the cause.