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

Not all plant disease is a death sentence.

Working at a garden centre in the past, I met all sorts of gardeners. Some who weren't really gardeners at all and some who spent a bit too much time inspecting their plants for one sick leaf.

"Should I spray it with something"? they would ask in panic.
"Is that the only leaf with that problem?" I would ask. "Yes, the rest of it looks fine."
"Excellent, then you have probably just fixed it. Don't worry about it."

Tuart tree issues.

This is a fairly young tuart (Eucalyptus gomphocephala) that has been planted on shallow limestone. So far it has grown at a great rate. One year it had borers so it was fed and watered a couple of times to help it through summer. 

There are three things here causing leaf damage.

There is a leaf miner causing separation of the leaf surface and causing blisters which would suggest leaf blister sawfly which can damage young trees. I have manually squished these before they hatch sometimes to help a struggling tree.

Gall wasps of some sort are making the dimples in the leaf.

Mites causing the silvering of the leaf surface by sucking the underleaf and damging cells.

Overall though, the tree looks happy.