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Caterpillars in honeysuckle flower tubes

ellenakirkellenakirk Posts: 17
in Problem solving
I have 4 honeysuckles, 3 I've planted and 1 that was in the hawthorn hedge when we moved in. I have no luck with any of them. Sometimes they just don’t bud, sometimes the leaves all fall off, sometimes they get absolutely covered in aphids. This year, for a change, they have tiny holes in each flower tube and inside, a caterpillar which has eaten all the stamens and turned them into caterpillar poo 🤨 If left, the flower just falls off. I have googled and can find no reference at all to anything similar, but my dad has the same problem (about a mile away) A neighbour 3 doors away who wouldn’t know 1 end of a honeysuckle from the other, has one in their hedge and it’s glorious every year 🤯
Any and all tips greatly appreciated 🙏

Posts

  • PosyPosy Posts: 3,601
    I have never seen anything like this. Anyone know what's going on?
  • BobTheGardenerBobTheGardener Posts: 11,385
    edited June 2021
    It'll be moth or fly larvae, but I don't know which.  Here's somewhere to start:

    A trowel in the hand is worth a thousand lost under a bush.
  • ellenakirkellenakirk Posts: 17
    If I can ID it, what would be the way to go about stopping it? No spray is going to touch them, safe in their little tubes! Would it have to be a species specific live treatment? Though if me and dad are the only people in the world who have it, no one’s going to be rushing to make a treatment! 🤣
  • wild edgeswild edges Posts: 10,497
    It fits the MO of the Twenty Plume moth http://www.ukflymines.co.uk/Moths/Alucita_hexadactyla.php
    Don't spray the plant with anything though. It's used by so many other insects that you'd kill more beneficial insects than the ones you're trying to target. You could try manual removal and put the caterpillars on the bird table but I don't know how much affect you'd have in the long run.


    If you can keep your head, while those around you are losing theirs, you may not have grasped the seriousness of the situation.
  • ellenakirkellenakirk Posts: 17
    Thank you for that research 😁 Oddly my county of Nottinghamshire, not listed.
    Manual removal would have the same effect as the caterpillars-no gorgeous smelling flowers 😕 I’m not one for overly spraying, but the plants as they are are no more beneficial than anything with leaves, the flowers are a no show this year. 
    I can’t think of any preventative measures I could take 🤔
  • LiriodendronLiriodendron Posts: 8,328
    I doubt if spraying would help.  You might find something to kill the caterpillars, but by that time the damage would be done, and in addition (as @wild edges says) you'd kill all the other inhabitants of the honeysuckle - some of which might be preparing to stuff themselves with a caterpillar lunch...
    Since 2019 I've lived in east Clare, in the west of Ireland.
  • Butterfly66Butterfly66 Posts: 970
    Removing the flowers early enough might just break the life cycle as the moths won’t hatch and lay eggs
     If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.”—Marcus Tullius Cicero
    East facing, top of a hill clay-loam, cultivated for centuries (7 years by me). Birmingham
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