Bird poo spider.. not a pest.

Rarely seen, so I thought it worth sharing for people to see.

Two kinds of waxy scale - Fig white scale and white waxy scale.

These insects secure their mouthparts to a plants stem or leaf mid rib and excrete a waxy exudate which covers and protects them.


White waxy scale

Fig wax scale

Control of scale insects.

The waxy scales can be more difficult to control once they are mature as they are so well protected by their shelter.

It is often best to prune off the worst parts and use a white oil/eco oil to suffocate any of the tiny crawlers that may be around on the other parts of the plant. Being waxy it may take a couple of goes at being sprayed with the oil.

Rats will try and eat anything if they are desperate.

Rats, the scourge of our attemps to grow food in our garden. Their repeated onslaught into our brassicas, clearing kale and battering broccoli finally wore me down last summer, then of course summer comes. Hot and dry and much too long, still with very little rain compared to 'the old days'. It is not great trying to garden when you feel bad about any water you are using. 

We stopped growing anything the rats like and I have been trying to remove places they can hide. Walking out the other day I saw this confetti-like stuff. 

Looking up , I realised it was shavings from the stems of the dragon fruit above. Obviously not very tasty and they must be quite desperate to be chewing on that. 

Spitfires and Sawfly Larvae

A sawfly lays it's eggs in the layers of a leaf on a eucalyptus tree. When the eggs hatch into larvae, they congregate and munch their way through a section of leaves on the tree.

If you disturb these caterpillar type grubs they can spit sappy acidic stuff.

I removed these when I noticed them in the Eucalyptus gomphocephala we have in the garden, as the tree is yong and I didn't want it to have any extra stress from losing leaves, however on a mature tree a bunch of sawfly larvae won't cause much damage overall.

Leaf cutter bee on rose

Well, not so much the bee, but this is what they do to leaves of various species of plant. I have seen them on roses mostly, but they also take pieces of leaf from passionfruit, crepe myrtle and even rhubarb!

 They roll the little circle or semi circle up and put it in ahole then lay an egg and put in some pollen for the baby bee larve to eat when it hatches. Cute, huh.

Beneficial insect - Mealy bug destroyer larvae

It can be easy to mistake this little thing for a mealy bug but the main difference is that the predator will be walking around hunting the sedentary mealy bugs. The predator is also much better dressed, not messy like their prey.

2014 May in the garden.

I have started this blog to keep track of any pests and disease problems that occur in our garden. Hopefully we will have guest pests (pictures of other people's garden problems) once I have identified ours. 

Where possible, I will also recommend natural solutions to these issues.

PHYSICAL DAMAGE

physical damage: sunburn, showing gap in shadecloth above.

Just a thin gap between the shadecloth strips overhead allowed a burn on the leaf.

BROAD MITES

broad mite on capsicum/chillies

This made all our cpsicum and chillie plants very unproductive. It was onlyy at the end of the season I figured out what it is and by snapping the tips off the plants it reduced the numbers. 

Last summer was really bad for mites of all sorts, I found.

broad mite on capsicum/chillies

Citrus often look unhappy as the weather cools and roots slow down their activity. Many deficiencies can be fixed by adding trace elements in spring and autumn. 

see Peter Coppin - citrus info for more info on citrus.

And more id pics at UC IPM photos

Nitrogen deficiency

deficiency

deficiency and oedema

Manganese (?) deficiency

deficiency

APHIDS

aphids

aphids on a rose

PREDATOR: aphid mummies on brocolli

CATERPILLARS AND MOTHS

cabbage white caterpillar

sweet potato moth???

pesky moth???

caterpillar clan on pear leaf

caterpillar clan on pear leaf

caterpillar clan on pear leaf