Content
- Pests on the boxwood: recognize fleas and combat them effectively
- Harming
- lifecycle
- Fight boxwood flea
- Tips
Boxwood fleas can do a great deal of damage
Pests on the boxwood: recognize fleas and combat them effectively
The common boxwood (Buxus sempervirens) is not only popular with gardeners, many pests also find the evergreen wood extremely attractive. The so-called boxwood flea (Psylla buxi) has serious damage to the leaves and therefore the ornamental value, but it can be tackled relatively easily.
Harming
The larvae of the boxwood flea appear shortly after the shoot in spring. They prefer to sit on the soft shoot tips and feed on the nutritious leaf juice of the plant. As a result, the leaves crippled, they turn spoon-like upwards, and on the leaves there are whitish structures that look like cotton balls. In the course of the leaves are sticky and can be covered with a blackish film, a Rußtaupilz. The approximately three to six millimeters long, green and difficult to see with the naked eye larvae excrete like plant lice sweet honeydew, which also attracts ants. The growth of infested plants is inhibited.
lifecycle
The larvae develop within about six weeks to mature, very agile and jumpable fleas, the first adult generation appears approximately from the end of May / early June in appearance. These, in turn, lay new eggs on the leaves in late summer, from which larvae hatch again in the following year. Only one generation develops each year.
Fight boxwood flea
If you know the life cycle of the boxwood flea, you can use the pest with pruning shears. The quickest way to get rid of the animals, by cutting the boxwood in time in spring and dispose of the eggs with the already hatched larvae contaminated clippings with the trash. Do not compost the material as the fleas can still hatch and infect neighboring plants. In addition, the garden tools used must be carefully disinfected before and after pruning. If the infestation pressure is very strong, insecticides help against sucking insects. These are available from specialist retailers, but they should only be used if the pruning was unsuccessful.
Tips
Boxwood is very popular with all sorts of leaf juice sucking insects as well as with various types of mites. Make sure you have sufficient planting distance, a suitable location and a good supply of water and nutrients to keep the plant healthy and strong. Pests prefer infested already weakened specimens.