There are tiny light green bugs on the underside of my petunias that are having babies and eating the flowers!
Question:What are these little eaters and how can I get rid of them? The parent bugs are almond shaped and about the size of 8 grains of sand. The babies are the size of about 2 grains of sand. HELP!
Answers:
Sounds like you have aphids. The best you can do is order some ladybugs, or search your local home and garden store for an insecticide. Aphids are a HUGE annoyance, especially on flowering plants.
Now you have me scratching my head. Light green and that size immediately calls to mind aphids, but they don't munch, they sip out plant juices from their straw like mouths.
Munchers more often bring to mind a "worm" like insect such as a caterpillar. There are some beetles who munch....do your unwelcome guests have hard sells?
If your guests are soft, that is without a hard shell, soap and water works well. However petunias are a little tricky to use soap..so just a 1/2 tsp dish soap per gallon of water.
If it's a hard shell insect, then you'll probably have to upgrade to a plant dust.pyrethrum, rotenone, or even Sevin.
The bugs you have are called greenfly, you can get greenfly killer from most garden centers or i use washing up liquid mixed with water 10% washing up liquid to 90% water. Apply this with a spray gun every couple of days until they dissapear and spray once a week as a detterent, this will not harm any plants. Dale
aphids.
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