Content
- When angelic petals show holes - causes and measures
- Lousy leaves - what can be behind it
- Detection and control
- leaf bugs
- tracked
- earwigs
- snails
Caterpillars eat the angel's trumpet despite their toxicity
When angelic petals show holes - causes and measures
Your angel trumpet gets more and more holes in the leaves? There can be different reasons. But if you get to the bottom of things and take action, you can save your beautiful ornamental plant from worse.
Lousy leaves - what can be behind it
If an angel's trumpet shows holes in the leaves, that's a bad thing, but usually not a really threatening problem. As a rule, there are pests behind it, which have to be successfully combated with the right measures. However, you should do that too, because in the long run the infestation naturally affects the plant already and can also lead to a lack of flowering.
The most common parasites, who like to indulge in the large, delicate leaves of the angel's trumpet, leaving behind holey food marks, are:
Detection and control
leaf bugs
Leaf bugs leave medium-sized holes in the angel's trumpet leaves. You should first combat them "humanely" and chemical-free by manual removal in several stages. Shake the angel trumpet in the morning, when the bugs that are poorly visible are still stiff, and pick them up from the ground. Repeat this until the feeding marks decrease. Otherwise, you can also sprinkle the plant with neem oil, which is harmless for bedbugs and angel drops, or, somewhat more rabidly, with soapy water.
tracked
When caterpillars are at work, you can see it in very large and rapidly spreading holes - caterpillars are finally insatiable. So you should take immediate countermeasures - preferably simply by searching the plant thoroughly and collecting the caterpillars. This is usually enough and is always preferable to chemical treatment.
earwigs
Earwigs are actually rather beneficial animals than pests, as they mouth mites or aphids along with a few bites of tender angel trumpet leaves. So close friendship with them and offer them instead of the angel trumpet an alternative: Have proven successful with wood wool filled clay flower pots, put the other way around in the bed or hanged in a tree. The ear wrinkles normally settle there by themselves without delay.
snails
Slug feeding can be clearly recognized by large slug holes. Slug infestation is quite critical for the angel trumpet. Chase the snails either in the evenings and place the plant in a clay pot on a dry terrace.