Leaf Eating Insect on my Geraniums
Question from Kathy:
Something is having a picnic on my Geraniums! I never had any problems (ever) with insects doing this. I 1st thought it was the Brown Grasshopper, cause they would hang around on the leaves. Again, it was the 1st time I saw that color of Grasshopper anywhere B-4. So, I read about homemade Hot Pepper spray, and the Grasshopper aren’t around anymore. But still, though I can’t see what is eatting my leaves! I think I saw a very tiny green worms that is the same color of the leaves. Maybe I was trying so hard just to find something. What to look for? Plus how to make homemade repellant? Help Asap, before, the leaves are all gone!!!
Answer from Pat:
Homemade repellants won’t solve your problem. The first thing to do is to make an intelligent diagnosis. If you wear glasses for reading you will need them for this job.
The way to diagnose what’s eating your plants is to go out at night, after dark—about 9:00 p.m. at this time of year (fall) with a flash light and a magnifying glass in addition to your glasses. Take along a kitchen bucket with some water in it. Look closely at the leaves and you will find the culprit. If it is small caterpillars, these are budworms. If large green caterpillars, these are loopers. Either way, the solution is the same. Hand pick and then spray the next day with Spinosad or BT. (Both are organic products even though Spinosad kills bees but it won’t harm bees if you use it in a wise and restricted manner only in places, like leaves where bees won’t go. BT works against caterpillars and does not harm bees, but you need to spray more often. You also need a fresh bottle of BT dated for this year, not an old bottle since it’s Bacillus thuringiensis, a live organism that kills caterpillars and nothing else. It does not last forever. Spinosad lasts longer on the plant and in the environment, and is more effective than BT but please be very very careful not to spray it on geranium flowers if you ever see bees visiting the flowers. (Usually bees don’t visit geraniums.) Remember, Spinosad kills bees if the spray is where they visit and even if it is dry on pollen they will carry it back to their hives and it makes baby bees sick and some will die. Please don’t cause this to happen.
There is something else that might be eating your geraniums. First, yes of course it might be grasshoppers or locusts. But you mentioned brown insects that look like grasshoppers. We will get to those in a minute. First green grasshoppers or locusts. You can catch these and squish them quickly, but you need to be exceedingly quick. I am often quite a sketch myself trying to catch these speedy creatures. Of course, if you are into this sort of thing you could dip them in batter and fry them! (GRIN.)Yes, they are edible, a fine source of protein, eaten by Africans, reputed to be crunchy and delicious, though I have never tried them myself and sometimes sold, like ants, coated in chocolate or flavored with hot pepper. You most likely would see locusts in daylight, however, and might need a net to catch them. Diatomaceous earth sprinkled onto leaves kills them but doesn’t look good on plants.
Another worse possibility is that you have an infestation of dread walking sticks. These are the brown things you might have seen. The good news is they are very easy to catch at night. These nocturnal things called Indian walking sticks began as pets and escaped into our gardens where they have settled down and are quite happy. They live in the ground in leaf litter and emerge at night to decimate your plants. They look exactly like slowly walking pieces of twig either green or brown. Pick them off carefully or they will drop to the ground. Drop them in that bucket of water you brought with you to drown them in. I think it’s kinder to squish them first. Give them a quick death if you can but no need to use poisons. Put a layer of dry earthworm castings on the ground beneath the plant to kill the rest of them as they emerge from the ground. Keep on going out at night each evening and getting rid of them until they are all gone. Many friends of mine have gotten rid of infestations this way, just keeping at it. You may have to go out at 10:00 pm to find them since they are so slow moving it takes them a while after dark to wake up and get moving. Weevils are another possibility. They live in the ground also but it’s immediately clear if the problem is weevils since these sluggish and slow-moving creatures take evenly shaped rounded bites out of the edges of leaves, leaving the leaf with what looks like a scalloped edge.
Thank you for writing me back! You responded to my question so fast, I thought that the answer would take days to get a reply. I did go out last night twice with my glasses and mag. glass and I looked and kept looking, but still couldn’t see anything! Thanks so much Pat for the advice on what will help me solve my (stressed-out) problem!!!
Feeling much more relaxed!
Did you look under leaves as well? It sounds as if the problem was a locust and that it flew away. if it had been caterpillars they would still have been there. Snails or slugs are a possibility but seldom bother geraniums. Except for hiding underneath and in the drainage hole of pots, slugs and snails don’t like pelargoniums, perhaps because of the strong odor of their leaves, which I like. Scented geraniums became scented not only to please human beings and thus get loving care but also to protect themselves from insects but even standard or zonal geraniums have a fragrance. So this talent of theirs goes back thousands of years.
There Are really light brown Grasshoppers! Not an Insect look alike. I was saying b-4 that I have never ever seen them here, and I have been in this house for 7 yrs. And I don’t recall seeing that color Grasshopper ever in my long life. My two cats like to play and eat the green shinny kinda opal big ones, But when I showed one of my little girls the brown Grasshopper to play with, she just looked and smelled it , then walked away. Strange I thought. She always loves to take 1 leg off the normal very common ones and watch it jump around and play with it, and of course…devourer. Pat, even though I have not seen the lt brown Grasshoppers for a few wks, I still think that I see more of my Geranium leaves being destroyed. Those Grasshoppers most likely did some damage, but, I must have other insects as well! Last night when I went outside (w/mag. glass and my prescription bi-focal reading glasses) and was looking for ? in some of my infected plants…. I even broke off parts of different leaves w/holes, even things off the main stem for investigating more under the mag. glass in my lit room. I did try to look for strange growth on the main stem that was thin, light brown that might be a stick-worm, I broke off some for my samples. I feel I have looked everywhere ! …. under the leaves, anything that seemed odd. I even thought about using s strainer so I would pour the dirt from my pots threw and Hopefully catch the insect or ‘s that hides in the dirt ! ( I know it seems that I need a pill or something to stop going Overboard in my thinking, I’m just BUGGED out! trying to find something that not visible to the naked eye). A few samples looked like they had fuzzy or little tiny hairs around the warped / bumpy part of the leaf that was rt next to the eaten part. I don’t know how to find or what they look like..when All these invisible monsters come out, like you said and many others, they Feast only at night/ some say they are very active when the Moon comes out? Just tonight I saw a little light color/white looking moth flying by my plants, I read about egg laying…leaf eating moth babies as well ! Again, I think …… it must be the moth ..the egg laying demon ! This morning I saw a earwig on a leaf. I hate those, so I click it off the leaf and smashed it. then I started reading more about garden insects and started learning about good insects that help plants with eating bad ones…and to my surprise, Earwigs are one of the good ones to have around ! One of many reasons I love Geraniums is Bees don’t come around them. I have been stung a lot by bees and other bugs that sting. I have total respect for Bees and the so many benefits they bring to our Planet. But, personally I don’t want them anywhere close to me !! Thanks again, Sorry I’ve seemed to have rambled some. I just want my plants healthy and beautiful again
Grasshoppers come in green and also brown. Some of them are both colors in different times in their growth cycle. For example, Long-Horned Grasshoppers are large insects 1/2 to 3 inches in length and they range from dark brown to greenish. Most katydids are green. There is also the Mormon Cricket that is brown, the short-legged back katydid that is pale brown, and the California Katydid that is green but the Keeled Sheild-back Katydid is brown to gray brown and mottled. The California Locust is cinnamon brown in color and the Red-legged Locust is dark brown. I have read your email with great care trying to think out what the problem might be. One thing that would help me would be a far more clear description of the damage. For example, one woman wrote me in a vague way about some insect decimating a plant and when I finally got the truth out of her I discovered the plant was cleanly cut off as if clipped by a sharp pair of garden by-pass pruners or secateurs, though one bit of leaf was left still hanging down. This was not an insect at all. It was a rat. She caught the rat and all was well. You need to let me know are the leaves eaten in holes, or on edges, or rounded? Are there any white trails because this means snails. Was the brown locust really a locust or something else? And anyway they are gone now so the damage is done, right? They are not coming back this year. It’s too late. It is now time to cut back geraniums and fertilize them. Refer to the geranium section of my book and the section in October on geraniums for instructions. Most summer insects are over with now, so prune your plants now (you should have been doing this a little every month all year. That is called progressive pruning and is what geraniums prefer, but if you did not do that now is the time.) And remember with geraniums it’s very important to always leave at least one or two leaves or better yet an actively growing tip lower down on every stem left on the plant or else that stem will die. After pruning dig out a little of the spent potting soil from the top of the pot and replenish with fresh soil. For geraniums in the ground, they actually like a little manure on top of the ground. Fertilize after pruning with a balanced fertilizer for growth, roots, bloom and general health and follow up with water. Your plants will regrow during winter and be ready to bloom again in spring. Clean up and throw away any leaves with rust on them but be sure to leave some green one’s to grow on the plant.
I have been writing you for awhile today and just finished a little while ago……I push the send button…….up came a pop-up saying that Yahoo is having 4 temporary problems and can’t send my email to you right now, one option button said ‘try again? , so I pushed it…and less than 1 wink of the eye my screen went back to main menu, I lost all that I wrote.’x!!*#!!!Q&$*’ I saw that I had some new emails so I checked and read yours. It was sorta funny about what you did write cause, the now lost email that I wrote about (I again write) had the same queries that had been already explained in the one I wrote today….. Soooo, Good news Pat, late last nite, went out with my gear to again do some investigating. I saw 2 aphids on one plant, so I know there more. I have taken care of many rose bushes in my past and they were consumed in thousands of the aphids. I got advice from a friend, that said to just put dish soap and water in a spray bottle and spray on all the rose plants…….Yep, it worked in 2 to 3 days and those aphids never returned! I know your not a fan of the home remedies, but hey, I have faith in trying different very affordable ways to get the same results. Now, 2nd thing I finally thought b-4 had to be one major problem I saw, one Budworm on a young leaf. It’s color was the same green that leaf was. Yeah!! I picked the leaf off and put it in a covered container, I had to show people that live here too, that I’m not a crazy person, they would see me out at night w/flash light in hand fussing with every plant, under leaves, poke the dirt etc. I felt relief, very proud of the many nights I tried that I saw a couple visible living problems, I just knew and felt It, there had to be something else going on than just the Grasshoppers….Then I found some white round ball shaped thing that wasn’t there the night b-4. I was and still sort of confused on what these balls are? I need to go back about 4 wks ago so you will understand the reason why I’m confused. I got some fertilizer from my Dad. They are little ball shaped time releasing (last for 4 months it said) for flowering plants and veggies. I loosened the dirt around all my plants and put many balls around the dirt. I don’t know exactly how they work, but I know these are very helpful for all plants. When I’ve looked at the dirt recently, The balls I see on the dirt I new what they are. But, last night about 5 white balls were a bigger size, not like the other ones. Maybe, this fertilizer works by buffing up and then burst out or pop open only some are deliver very fast, and other are made to work at a later time. That’s how these do continue working for 4 months!?! OR, I just come up with creative idea’s that helps me think the story I made up, really be true, good reasoning, It sounds like, It Could happen!! I don’t have a clue about how the balls do what they do. I feel that the real bad truth is the bigger balls I saw last night are really a insect egg that came slowly up from under the dirt to the top and Hatched open, Plus, whatever did come out means I have yet another insect added to make my problem even Worse.!!! Yep…this could be what I saw. I needed a break, so I went outside for some air. Suddenly, when I was looking at one of my cats, I noticed there was a weird patch on the backside of one ear, my heart skipped a couple beats. I know this problem must be very new. All the hair looked as though someone tried to use a trimmer on that area. We have bad punks (kids/older teens that would do this, and are known to do the unthinkable harm on cats for their own enjoyment) . But when I put her on my lap and stared at the hairless patch, I saw some kind of bug or parasite on it. I have had many cats in the past, and know the is neither flea or tick something never have seen b-4 in all my life. I have talked with many cat loving people regarding some of problems that cats have had, BUT Never, I mean never heard anyone/doctors talk about bugs that eats hair and lay their eggs in the cats skin!! Sorry about that…I had to to ‘vent’ some frustration of new unexplainable bug that I again don’t know what it is!!!!! After I finish with you, and can send you this time on Yahoo. I will find a site that at least can give information of what my cat is has. Then, hopefully I can tomorrow, borrow money from my landlady and see if she has time to give me a ride to the Vet’. Doc……… OK, No worry, just another bug issue, Right?? Back to the main plant insects…..I did find a home remedy yesterday, that say it gets rid of caterpillars and aphids. It is worth a try and cost effective for me. But even so, Now, after I found the egg looking thing, I need a magic multi tasking /pet safe/plant friendly, affordable/known for its proven effectiveness. I’m asking for the answer of an ideal product that hasn’t been introduced to the public at the garden stores or not even made yet! Pat you may know about some other products out there that can help. I would like to know any kind of information you know, and can tell what options I may have?
As you already figured out, I am a garden expert and not an animal expert or vet. However, I should inform you that occasionally ticks burrow into the flesh of cats and dogs can look like an abscess. Take your cat to the vet to find out what is wrong. Regarding slow-release fertilizers, these products are coated with polymers. The fertilizer inside is gradually released to the plant. The “dead body” of the fertilizer (empty shell) looks clear instead of colored and will continue to lie on top of the ground. When you see small white balls under plants that are slightly yellowish and a little larger than the fertilizer balls, these are snail eggs. They will hatch out as snails. You do not need a household remedy to get rid of these. Simply squash them. Regarding aphids, soapy water works well to get rid of them as you have discovered. Or you can simply wash them off by squirting plants with the hose. Another way is to release lady bugs onto the plants. Purchase them at the nursery garden, chill them a few hours in your refrigerator, sprinkle the plants with a water from your garden hose and late in the day at dusk release the lady bugs onto the plants low down they will walk upwards, lay eggs and their larvae will eat the aphids. I suggest you put some extra energy into feeding and caring for plants instead of worrying so much about pests. Healthy plants growing in the appropriate amount of light will be able to fight off pests. When sun-loving plants are growing in too much shade they will always fall prey to pests and diseases. If you have no money for fertilizers use home made fertilizers. One of these is banana peels. Chop them up and bury them in the soil around plants.
Sorry this reply took me a few days! I finally got some time today. As far as my cat goes, I took your suggestion and use some peroxide and I found some ointment to apply on her infected area in the last few days, this problem she has seems to look a lot better! Now, my plants……I will try the banana idea of yours and spray with soap and water. But I’m wondering if these worms will go away cause of the season change or will the get bigger and do their thing by making a sack and then open into a moth or something? I also read that ground Cayenne sprinkling on the leaves around early evening might work. Thanks so much Pat for all of you help!!! I will update you with (I hope) happy results!!
Glad my suggestion seems to have cured your cat. (New job description: Vet.) Re: worms on…Geraniums—(Right?) Pick them off by hand and squish them. This is the most effective, home-made cure. Costs nothing. Wash off the eggs under leaves with a little soapy water on a sponge if you have one or wash cloth if you don’t. Cost: Zero! Don’t use the cayenne pepper which will do no good. Keep it for soup. Latest research shows it has many healthful characteristics. In clearer words: It’s good for you. Point is this: Why wait around and see what the caterpillars do or if they die in winter or make cocoons or whatever. Get rid of them PRONTO before they get rid of your plants. Best of luck.
We love the big, juicy, green catterlipar who is chomping way in our scented geranium. We want to know what happens next in his life cycle.
When caterpillars are growing they eat as much as possible and shed their skins five times. When they reach full size and maturity, they search for a safe and secure spot in which they can glue their tail firmly to a twig or piece of wood and hang downwards where they form themselves into a pupa inside a chrysalis. Within the chrysalis an amazing metamorphosis then takes place during which the pupa changes into a graceful butterfly. When the metamorphosis is finished a graceful butterfly emerges, unfurls and dries its wings and then pumps them back and forth until ready to fly. Once it flies away it sustains itself on the nectar of flowers and begins the search for a mate. When a female butterfly has mated and lays its eggs on a leaf, the life cycle of the butterfly is complete. When the eggs hatch and baby caterpillars emerge, the process begins again.
We live in New Mexico. Have developed a very bad infestation of young grasshoppers. Suggestions?
Grass hoppers are ground-dwelling insects which, when conditions are just right, appear in swarms at which time they’re known as locusts. Swarms of locusts have at times changed human history and thus were featured in Biblical stories and ancient mythology. A great story is told by the Mormons of Salt Lake City. The settlers’ crops that they needed to survive the winter were being eaten by a plague of locusts. The pioneer Mormons prayed for a miracle. Luckily the seagulls from Salt Lake must have tuned in since they flew to onto the farmers’ fields in a huge flock and gorged on the locusts. Each time they filled up on the insects, they vomited and then ate more. To commemorate this miracle, there is even a statue to the seagulls. It sounds as if you might be experiencing one of those times, though without the life-threatening conditions.
Most liquid pesticides have little effect upon swarms of locusts and would do more harm to the environment than they would help you with your problem. There are some traps made but they aren’t much good either. I recommend purchasing a bag of diatomaceous earth formulated for garden use and also a hand-crank duster for applying it. Don’t forget to purchase disposable face masks so you won’t breathe the dust into your lungs. Dust your plants and the ground any time in the day after the dew dries. This kills any locusts who land on the dust. Unfortunately, diatomaceous earth is somewhat unsightly, but unless it is wet, it does work. Another detriment is that you may see the locusts’ dying agonies, which are pathetic to watch, especially for children.
A final option, which is the only possible choice for gardeners with Buddhist tendencies, is to use a physical barrier and cover edible crops or other plants with floating row covers. These work remarkably well unless the grass hoppers are hatching beneath them.
I have a large white caterpillar about 2 inches long eating my geranium leaves is it a butterfly or a moth or something else
Thank you
Vinnie
Most likely your “Large White Caterpillar” is the larvae of a moth. However without further description it is impossible to identify it. I suggest you consult books on insect identification, or id websites online.