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white foam
ann386
Posts: 18
why do I see white foam coming from my deep blue flowers down on the stem from the head?
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Like this?
If so it's nothing to worry about ... it's a foamy covering of a little insect larva called a frog hopper. The white foam protects it from being eaten by birds ... it's called Cuckoo Spit because it first appears when the cuckoos arrive and I suppose it was once thought to be connected with their arrival.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Coincidentally - I was trying to photograph frog hoppers today as it had been pouring and there were lovely raindrops everywhere. However, the blasted frog hoppers are so small I couldn't get a good focus on it no matter how I tried. But this will let you see what they look like when they have formed out of the spit. This one was on fennel which was heavily droopy because of the amount of rain. It was about 4-5 mm long.
How does it get on the stem? Why? What harm does it do? What do they do?
As I understand it, they don't do much harm.
https://www.thespruce.com/spittlebugs-1402690