Hate them. Unfortunately, they're a gardening necessity. Without them, we'd not have any birds or lizards. When you pimp pollen, you become painfully aware when they over step their bounds.
I hoped to pull some pollen from this seedling, but something beat me to it.
Fortunately, the bugger was still there so I could finally determine who the culprit was!
He was rather quick at getting away.
I figured out viewing bud identification sites it had to be a sort of Katydid. Sending the photos to Baldo Villegas, the State Entomologist, confirmed it is an immature Katydid. Baldo has a great rose site containing many photos of diseases and insects as well as professional information concerning what to do about them. Here is the link. Baldo's bug and rose site I don't have any photos of a mature one...yet, but you can find them easily online.
Katydids can cause some real damage in your gardens. They'll eat just about anything. If you find these in your garden...
SQUASH THEM! They're Katydid eggs. They deserve to be squashed!
Oh they are so baddddd, I actually caught one taking a bite out of one of my rose blooms, I got right in his face and gave him the evil eye and said to him, "do you feel lucky punk, well do you???" Then I picked him up by the hind leg and tossed him in the air, he fell to the ground and I stomped on him! well I didn't regret killing that bug, thats for sure.
ReplyDeleteI hate those things. There are tiny ones in the roses this week, and I'm squashing them without mercy.
ReplyDeleteHi roseseek,
ReplyDeleteI am following your blogs and getting myself mentally prepared for propagating my roses. There is so much to do in the garden just for maintennance that doing another thing is daunting. Regardless, my real question is - I have an infestation of roseslugs and have used Spinosad on a regular basis (sort of). Do you have another method of getting rid of these kind of bugs/worms?
brookesrosegarden.com
Brooke, welcome! Thanks for following. The key to your problems are you words, "sort of". ANYTHING you use "sort of" will more than likely not work the way you hope it will. Whatever you use, has to be done per the label. If it says to do it every fourteen days, do it, or it probably won't work.
ReplyDeleteYou can use many different insecticides, but almost anything else you use will be MORE toxic to beneficials and definitely to YOU. If it's not too hot where you are, horticultural oils work by smothering them. If your weather is hot, it will also likely cook the foliage. Insecticidal Soap will work, but can also burn foliage in heat or water stress conditions as it is lard, oil, and it is highly caustic to your eye tissue and can easily dry out your skin if you get it on you.
BT probably would knock some of them down, but if you're going to use that properly, why not just use the Spinosad properly?
You don't want to use any organo phosphates as they kill almost everything.
You have one of the safest, most effective and "greenest" weapons in your hands. Decide to use it by the label instructions, concentration and frequency, and it will do what you want it to. Good luck!