Shall I take my spider mites with me?
Loxley
Posts: 5,698
I want to move my plants from my old garden to my new house. However I've noticed speckling/drying out on a few plants over the last couple of years - affected plants have been thyme, rosemary, perhaps some of my geraniums. I haven't made a cast iron diagnosis of spider mite but strongly suspect it. (I have also noticed our privet hedges contain whitefly populations). The soil tends to dry out easily here which I hear makes spider mite problems worse, but the new garden is better.
Do I take my dug up plants with me? None of the perennials are showing signs and I've cut off all dead vegetation, but my box balls do show a bit of speckling and bronzing. I love my box balls and they're expensive to replace at this size! Could I take them, quarantine them, and blast them with pesticide? What treatment is best?
Last edited: 15 January 2017 16:14:37
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If you have a spider mite infestation for that long you would probably have noticed their webbing here and there around your plants and I would have thought the plants would be dead by now. Have you noticed any webbing?
If your herbs have little white/cream dots on them it's more likely to be thrip damage.
I get it almost every year (on my herbs
Not sure about your box balls....
Billericay - Essex
Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit.
Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.
Not noticed webbing (apart from the odd leaf curler grub). So maybe thrips then? We're talking about leaves looking dried out and lacking vitality, with the surface riddled with tiny dots. They kind of looked deep fried on the rosemary! Are thrips something that will follow me on the plants?
Try googling - thrip damage on herbs - and have a look at the images and see if they symptoms match.
They live in the soil and on the plant, so not easy to get rid of, but I've never tried
Billericay - Essex
Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit.
Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.
The damage seen online looks pretty familiar so thanks! Maybe a systemic insecticide might do the trick, while the plants are still potted up?
... After a Google search, I see our cannabis growing friends suggest using mosquito dunks to kill off the larvae in the soil. Could be viable while the plants are still potted.
Don't use a systemic insecticide on anything you're going to eat Will.
I think if it were me I'd start with some fresh herbs in the Spring
Billericay - Essex
Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit.
Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.
I'm not going to eat my box balls, or my herbaceous perennials! No I'm not bothering taking any herbs with me. Just the box balls and herbaceous perennials.
I would rather zap the bejazus out of these plants before planting out in the new place, to minimise infecting the new garden.
Last edited: 16 January 2017 09:43:58
If you have somewhere enclosed (eg shed, greenhouse) where you could put the box balls and HPs temporarily, then an insecticidal smoke bomb might work. "Midi Fortefog 'P' Fumer" is reported to kill them, but the bu&&ers may need to be active, so wrong time of the year really.