Insecticide For Flower Beds

Many different species of aphids can be found on ornamental plants. They range in color from green, yellow, black, and pink to red. Aphids can attack most plants in your landscape, but many species have an affinity for soft, succulent plants like flowers and roses. They cause damage to your plants by sucking plant sap and sometimes spreading plant diseases. Because they reproduce rapidly, a few aphids can quickly explode into a major infestation.

If you’ve ever planted tropical hibiscus in the summer, you’ve probably encountered whiteflies. The two seem to go hand-in-hand. Whiteflies hang out on the undersides of plant leaves, but clouds of white adults will fly around infested plants when they’re disturbed. Like aphids, the suck plant sap and reproduce rapidly and can quickly become an infestation.

Different species of scale can be found on camellias, hollies, magnolias, euonymus, and many other ornamentals. Scale are unusual because, unlike other insects, they spend most of their lives underneath a hardened or soft waxy covering with their mouthparts imbedded in a plant. Bad infestations can result in weak, distorted growth and death of branches or the entire plant.

Known to attack over 150 different plants, spider mites are actually arachnids, a closely related group to insects. Adults are so tiny they are barely visible to the naked eye. They can vary in color from red to yellow or green, and the two-spotted spider mite is one of the most common species. They cause damage by sucking the fluid from plant cells resulting in a light-colored stippling appearance on leaves which can look bleached or bronzed during heavy infestations. When there are a large number of spider mites present, they can create webbing at the tops of plants.

Like spider mites, slugs and snails are also not insects; they are mollusks and closely related to oysters. They are most active at night, spend the day hiding in your landscape, and thrive in areas of your garden with constant moisture. Damage caused by slugs and snails are long, narrow holes left in leaves. Slugs and snails will also leave behind shiny, dried slime trails.

This garden pest will feast on more than 400 different species of plants including trees, shrubs, herbaceous perennials, and annual flowers and vegetables. Japanese beetles will eat the foliage and blossoms leaving behind skeletonized plants, and the severity of the damage is dependent on the number of beetles present. They are particularly drawn to large, light-colored flowers (white and yellow roses are some of their favorite plants to target.)