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Help Please Beech Hedge

chris.x.bateschris.x.bates Posts: 4
in Problem solving
Hello, I planted this Beech Hedge some 5 Years ago and until recently it's been healthy. I've noted this year more brown during it's green season and it generally not looking as healthy as it should. On inspection , I have found what looks to be a caterpillar (see photo) and a red spider has been spotted (but I have yet to personally witness one). Please can someone advise what is wrong and what I should do about it. Thank You.   Chris

Posts

  • bédébédé Posts: 3,095
    ? Beech tree wooly aphid.

    I have been spared Beech tree spider mite this year.
     location: Surrey Hills, England, ex-woodland acidic sand.
    "Have nothing in your garden that you don't know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful."
  • RubytooRubytoo Posts: 1,630
    edited October 2023
    I can't help with the hedge in general, sorry.
    But I think the solitary little green chap/chapess with the yellow dashes or stripes is an early stage of one of the hoverflies.
    So one of the good "bugs". (They do look a little like a caterpillar don't they).
    They will have been eating the other smaller things in your photos which I am guessing are some kind of aphid.
    They could have caused the little spotty dots.
    Edited to clarify the spotty dots caused by something other than the hoverfly larvae.
     
  • robairdmacraignilrobairdmacraignil Posts: 782
    The leaves that are on your hedge plants will have been formed earlier in the year so will naturally have got some wear and tear and have different things living on them by now when the plants will be letting them die off over autumn and winter to be replaced by new leaves in the spring. I have read that the leaves on beach hold better on the plant over winter if the hedge is given a trim in the summer which encourages new growth then that is in place for the normal shut down in the autumn. I'd also trim off some of the longer stems now to make them even with the rest of the growth to make it look tidier but that's just cosmetic intervention at this stage as there is unlikely to be fresh growth at this stage of the year.
    Happy gardening!
    https://www.youtube.com/user/sustainableveg/videos
  • chris.x.bateschris.x.bates Posts: 4
    To bédé, Rubytoo, robairdmacraignil.

    Thank You
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