My Oxalis's flowers are the first slide so people who hate bugs aren't wigged out.
INFO:
I do a weekly/monthly watering of all my porch plants (depending on how much that plant needs). Its incredibly humid in central Florida, so my watered pot will STAY moist that whole time. So far so good!
I have an Oxalis bush I LOVE dearly. It was droopy so that meant everybody needed watering. He's usually my visual red flag so everyone get enough because he IMMEDIATELY lets me know when the water is gone. My other plants are arid/desert plants and they hide it like a moody teen.
But tonight, I found half of him chewed up and curled, stuck with silk! I prune out a small amount of shitty or dead flowers and stems and leaves when I water him. But I pulled out nearly half of him this time. 😔 Most of the leaves pulled were balled up with webbing or nibbled to the stem!
I only found these two pupae looking thingies.
Bug ID? Are their any natural deterrents available, or what pesticide can I use to stop it? I flushed all my plants but its only him with this so far
by cricket_moncher
6 Comments
I posted before adding this note!!!
I HAVE A DOG WHO SNIFFS THESE FLOWERS! He likes to garden with me. What pet safe deterrent can I use? If not, I’ll have to cut of the pupper’s sniff time 🙁
https://preview.redd.it/q5janxperkpe1.jpeg?width=3060&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d03f7a7bb3af9ccc2ad152e7e188e83fa1daa8f7
A worm??
The brown egg looking thing looks like a fly egg of some kind. Not a concern.
It’s a catapillar of some kind that’s causing the damage. Obviously since catapillars turn into moths and butterflies, that go on to pollinate flowers my preference is not to kill them. Put on some gloves and gently pick them up, take them outside and place them on a big well established plant that can afford to lose some leaves.
If you really want to go down the killing them path. You can spray the plant with pyrethrum.
Yay! You created habitat for pollinators! That is a moth caterpillar and pupa. Thanks for sharing your plant!
Cutie
Put the Oxalis in the ground. It’s a flowering perennial grown from corms.
Not a bush. But you could potentially have an Oxalis “bush” if the growth space was bigger. Use the empty pots to experiment with different varieties of plants.