Need help ID'ing a problem on some of my bougies (looks like insect damage..)

[SU2]

[I want to preface by saying that none of the affected shoots were wired or were under any manipulation like guy-wires / weights / etc]

Am unsure if this is more likely insect or what, I'm not even sure if there's two separate issues here.... I've got two issues, one is that a handful of shoots have leaves (particularly at their apexes) that are 'curling', here's a pic of one shoot with this problem right beside a good/proper shoot:



However, there's also some spots that look like bugs were eating (and near such spots, usually the leaf right beneath it, I'm finding a bunch of little black dots, almost like tiny grains of black sand - definitely not alive / don't move, maybe eggs or something? They're visible on the leaf below the crown of this affected shoot:


And them attacking a couple more shoots (in very different areas - none of these are side-by-side or anything, which I found weird)



(I should be clear that the two above pictures are of different bougainvilleas, one of my large yamadoris has the curling issue + bugs/black-dots, while another two bougies have only the bugs/black-dots)

Nothing's changed insofar as how I handle them, they're usually pretty pest/problem free, if anything I guess I've slightly restricted the waterings but that's only because I was over-watering a bit, they're certainly not thirsty (even though I knew it was moist I still watered the half of the container that the curled parts were on, just to be 100% it wasn't a hydration issue - watered it and then took that picture ~an hour later.. My lawn-care guys came the other day and I wasn't there to guard my garden, so their weedwhips and mower got a bunch of crap on my plants, I washed them thoroughly (hose on gentle pressure and went plant-by-plant cleaning them; anything that got in the containers / substrate surface was removed!)

Thanks for any help diagnosing this/these problem/problems! I've got 3 different bougies affected (haven't noticed either problem on any other species), and my favorite and 3rd favorite specimen are part of those 3 so really want to tackle this ASAP

 

[SU2]

Just sleuthed around a bit longer and found the critter (a worm), am still 99% sure the curled-leaf thing from the first pic is a different problem entirely, but so far as what's eating holes I suspect it's gotta be this little guy: [edit: I'm sorry I couldn't edit-out the first post, apparently there's a time-limit on how long you can edit ]



I'd love to know what type of caterpillar that is - I have several really lush passion flower vine trellises that are breeding grounds for these spikey, orange caterpillars (much larger, ~1.5" long) that become monarch butterflies (which I'm happy with), though I know nothing of caterpillars and can't help but wonder if the two are related.. I thought the only damage from *those* caterpillars was the 'inside the leaf' damage, that shows as waxy trails like this:


I probably pluck ~1-3 leaves daily like that from my bougies (altogether, not per-plant!) I've always figured that was related to the caterpillars that thrive in my passion vines (passiflora edulis, fwiw) as the passion leaves have massive amounts of that waxy 'pathway' marking, so am assuming that's ^ a separate problem from the two I made this thread over, but figured I'd add it to be sure / comprehensive!



Thanks for any help ID'ing that 'curling' I don't know what could be causing it, am fearing maybe too much minerals too quick (I was pretty sure I had iron or magnesium deficiency so bought a minerals product, a 'fertilizer enhancer' product, I didn't over-apply but I did just give it a regular dose right off the bat, it's not beyond reason that I had a deficiency in either iron or magnesium and somehow the product made it worse, as mg+ and fe compete for up-take so if the mineral formula had better delivery of the mineral I *wasn't* low on, it could've exacerbated the other's deficiency!)

 

[Tiki]

View attachment 156083

That looks like a leaf miner, Think you can even see him in the pic.

The catapiller prob got brothers and sisters too. A good systemic spray or granular makes short work of them. Check around for something with "
imidacloprid" in it.Will kill anything that eats your plant.

Sevin dust works too but it kills just as many good bugs as it does bad bugs and washes away with the rain..which in florida means youd be dusting all day every day. But it does work when your in a pinch. It also does a number on fire ants.

As for the crinkled leaves, could be some lack of trace minerals or could be fungal. With all the rain the south has been getting Id tend to lean toward fungal.

 

[rockm]

The trails are from slugs, not the worm. You've also got wooly adelgids--the white fluffy stuff in the center of the new growth in the fourth pic...

 

[SU2]

That looks like a leaf miner, Think you can even see him in the pic.

The catapiller prob got brothers and sisters too. A good systemic spray or granular makes short work of them. Check around for something with "
imidacloprid" in it.Will kill anything that eats your plant.

Sevin dust works too but it kills just as many good bugs as it does bad bugs and washes away with the rain..which in florida means youd be dusting all day every day. But it does work when your in a pinch. It also does a number on fire ants.

As for the crinkled leaves, could be some lack of trace minerals or could be fungal. With all the rain the south has been getting Id tend to lean toward fungal.

Haha yeah on the far-left? I'd squished them and leave the leaf but now that all of my bougies are in heavy veg growth I've taken to just removing any when it has signs of those miners!

Re caterpillars, yeah after ID'ing them I began killing them (magnifying glass was very useful!), as they seem to only enjoy shoot-tips and I'm not trying to prune any shoots right now, so anyways I'm going through (probably had ~10 affected shoot-tips) them killing 'the' caterpillar, until I found my first with two... at that point I realized I need a spray or something because they're probably breeding at this point..

Re crinkled leaves, there's nothing indicating fungal on the leaves although I'll double-check... there was an issue with cotton-web mold on the substrate surface but that was rectified >2wks ago and also was on the opposite corner of the box (it's a 1' wide bougie but that trunk was, at some point, ~6-8 smaller trunks, so I imagine the roots//foliage are pretty 'aligned' (I know that, in general, specific root areas feed specific foliage areas, but that the patterning of this varies by specie)

 

[sorce]

from slugs, not the worm. You've also got wooly adelgids--the white fluffy stuf

We're up to 5 or 6...

@SU2 I'm gonna go get a beer today....
And when you get these problems fixed...

I'm gonna drink it for ya!

Sorce

 

[rockm]

We're up to 5 or 6...

@SU2 I'm gonna go get a beer today....
And when you get these problems fixed...

I'm gonna drink it for ya!

Sorce

He won't hear you drinking it. He's got his fingers in his ears, humming the "dump stuff on it until it goes away" song.

 

[gallina1594]

I had a similar problem with my indoor pepper plants. New leaves would curl and some mature leaves would. I was referred to this basic chart that will help to get you going in the right direction

 

[SU2]

The trails are from slugs, not the worm. You've also got wooly adelgids--the white fluffy stuff in the center of the new growth in the fourth pic...

that little chunk on the leaf below the slug leaf? The right-side leaf on the shoot right below it? I'm pretty sure that's a petiole (I always pinch-off the leaves with slug trails and sometimes don't get it all, and subsequently pinch-off - either that, or just general yard-crap from the mowing that was done right before that pic, is probably it - if you mean that large chunk sitting on the center of the leaf!)

Do you have any ideas what could be causing these caterpillars? The leaf miners are a minor annoyance, and the crinkling problem never worsened or spread (though the pictured spot is still like that, but no worse), but over the past 36hrs these caterpillars have just taken-off, they're decimating my bougies (seems to be bougies-only, though I need to check more to confirm that) It sucks because they seem to be getting there via the ground (as my raised 'monkey pole' bougies are unaffected, not a single spot) and my best 3 bougies are all on-ground, one of them is mobile so I put it on a stand last night (it still had many more caterpillars/slugs today than yesterday though) but the other two - my biggest two - are in stationary boxes, I simply can't move them w/o re-potting..

Am going to start with insecticides today (well, neem oil - already have on-hand and these guys seem to fall under its capabilities), really sucks because I'm trying to thicken all of the affected shoots and these pests/caterpillars only seem interested in the fresh leaf-bud / apex of the shoots, if they progress much more they're going to have effectively 'tip pruned' a bunch of shoots that are nowhere near fat enough to be pinched yet

I wish I knew why they were doing this all of a sudden, the only two things that seem of any significance are the lawn-mowing that preceded this (I usually hose-down my plants' foliage after mowings but part of my hose blew-out so I couldn't get it to my garden this last time), or just the 'ideal situation' of fresh growth (the plants are highly-fertilized and growing like crazy, my understanding is that when pushing growth like this, the growth is weaker, more susceptible to pests..) If it's the latter, talk about counter-productive! Pushing growth then losing it!!

 

[SU2]

We're up to 5 or 6...

@SU2 I'm gonna go get a beer today....
And when you get these problems fixed...

I'm gonna drink it for ya!

Sorce

5 or 6 what? lol I'm so confused now!

And I like that, hopefully you can drink it within 36hrs ;D

 

[SU2]

He won't hear you drinking it. He's got his fingers in his ears, humming the "dump stuff on it until it goes away" song.

Again, you're implying I don't listen....I don't get why you think that, why would I keep posting if I wasn't using the information gleaned from it? I owe so much of what I know to forums (here and reddit, where I post even more - and like here I do listen, I really don't know why you think I'd waste so much of my + others' time posting if it weren't for practical knowledge about my garden :/ )

And fwiw I haven't treated it with anything yet, the past two days I had a lot of work to do that couldn't be put-off so I was only able to pinch&kill a handful of the caterpillars while out watering, today I can finally figure out what to do - and 'dumping stuff on it til it goes away' does seem to be good practice here - what other option(s) do I have? I don't think I can reliably stay on-top of manually killing them, and sorce says to spray an insecticide...if there's other approaches I'm happy to hear them I just don't know how else you'd approach an infestation of ~1mm-long (and less), clear-ish caterpillars.. I've got neem oil on-hand and it looks like that may be a good candidate (if it is, and I use that instead of the specific chemical sorce listed, I feel like you'd find that as being wrong/rude/not-right somehow and I just don't get why you're like that to me so much, you and one other poster whose name I can't recall just seem to think I'm here to troll/waste time but I assure you that's not the case, I do listen and have learned a good deal of my bonsai knowledge from forum/reddit discussions!)

 

[rockm]

that little chunk on the leaf below the slug leaf? The right-side leaf on the shoot right below it? I'm pretty sure that's a petiole (I always pinch-off the leaves with slug trails and sometimes don't get it all, and subsequently pinch-off - either that, or just general yard-crap from the mowing that was done right before that pic, is probably it - if you mean that large chunk sitting on the center of the leaf!)

Do you have any ideas what could be causing these caterpillars? The leaf miners are a minor annoyance, and the crinkling problem never worsened or spread (though the pictured spot is still like that, but no worse), but over the past 36hrs these caterpillars have just taken-off, they're decimating my bougies (seems to be bougies-only, though I need to check more to confirm that) It sucks because they seem to be getting there via the ground (as my raised 'monkey pole' bougies are unaffected, not a single spot) and my best 3 bougies are all on-ground, one of them is mobile so I put it on a stand last night (it still had many more caterpillars/slugs today than yesterday though) but the other two - my biggest two - are in stationary boxes, I simply can't move them w/o re-potting..

Am going to start with insecticides today (well, neem oil - already have on-hand and these guys seem to fall under its capabilities), really sucks because I'm trying to thicken all of the affected shoots and these pests/caterpillars only seem interested in the fresh leaf-bud / apex of the shoots, if they progress much more they're going to have effectively 'tip pruned' a bunch of shoots that are nowhere near fat enough to be pinched yet

I wish I knew why they were doing this all of a sudden, the only two things that seem of any significance are the lawn-mowing that preceded this (I usually hose-down my plants' foliage after mowings but part of my hose blew-out so I couldn't get it to my garden this last time), or just the 'ideal situation' of fresh growth (the plants are highly-fertilized and growing like crazy, my understanding is that when pushing growth like this, the growth is weaker, more susceptible to pests..) If it's the latter, talk about counter-productive! Pushing growth then losing it!!

The adelgids are in the center of the shoot in picture. That white fluffy looking stuff is a collection of the pests. Adelgids are basically fuzzy aphids that like long sappy new growth.

I don't know what's causing the caterpillars, other than an infestation of its adult form laying a lot of eggs that have hatched all at once.. That worm could be a canker worm, which I have up here. They're hungry little bastards and come into my backyard and trees from the big forest trees that overhang my backyard. They can sometimes be seen suspended by webs from overhanging leaves and trees.

You also seem to be over fertilizing everything (without providing enough sun, perhaps?) which would account for the insects/slugs and long lank growth on your trees.

 

[rockm]

Again, you're implying I don't listen....I don't get why you think that, why would I keep posting if I wasn't using the information gleaned from it? I owe so much of what I know to forums (here and reddit, where I post even more - and like here I do listen, I really don't know why you think I'd waste so much of my + others' time posting if it weren't for practical knowledge about my garden :/ )

I haven't treated it with anything yet, the past two days I had a lot of work to do that couldn't be put-off so I was only able to pinch&kill a handful of the caterpillars while out watering, today I can finally figure out what to do (and 'dumping stuff on it til it goes away' does seem to be good practice here - what other option do I have? I don't think I can reliably stay on-top of manually killing them, sorce says to spray an insecticide...if there's other approaches I'm happy to hear them I just don't know how else you'd approach an infestation of ~1mm-long (and less), clear-ish caterpillars..)

Change the CIRCUMSTANCES that are creating your issues--get ALL plants up off the ground--since that's where the problem plants seem to be. Stop pinching stuff incessantly, stop dumping fertilizer and insecticides at the drop of a hat. Stop watering everything so much (Misting included).

 

[SU2]

The adelgids are in the center of the shoot in picture. That white fluffy looking stuff is a collection of the pests. Adelgids are basically fuzzy aphids that like long sappy new growth.

I don't know what's causing the caterpillars, other than an infestation of its adult form laying a lot of eggs that have hatched all at once.. That worm could be a canker worm, which I have up here. They're hungry little bastards and come into my backyard and trees from the big forest trees that overhang my backyard. They can sometimes be seen suspended by webs from overhanging leaves and trees.

You also seem to be over fertilizing everything (without providing enough sun, perhaps?) which would account for the insects/slugs and long lank growth on your trees.

Ok I get you, upon googling and seeing masses of them I realize I have infestations of those on some of my hibiscus and firebush, they're in a semi-quarantine but obviously not far-enough away!

A vine took-over a part of a tree's canopy that's only ~15' from being over-head of my garden, whatever ecosystem is up there could certainly be floating down - I imagine cutting that down is a smart move?

Re fertilizing, I'm unsure if I am or not, I've had trouble finding hard #'s for fertilizing - I was fertilizing pretty hard for a couple months but then backed-off (had done some work so didn't want to 'push growth') and since then have only been doing ~75% (and have added trace minerals, so no more iron/magnesium concerns) And the sun hasn't been as good this past month, I have a large tree in my backyard and, through the year as the sun's path in the sky changes, I get different areas that suddenly don't get their midday sun - two of the 3 affected plants fit that category (although the third infested plant is in a container that I've kept in full-sun for weeks now, it was a yamadori and once it 'stabilized' and started growing I put it in full-sun and that one is getting lighter fert than the others since it's so newly-collected - it just stabilized a few weeks ago.. I guess they could've started on another bougie and migrated (how do they get around, do ants/bugs move them or do they rely on their own locomotion?)

My fert is a 24-8-16, I'd switched from a balanced fert once summer started (and am still doing the more-frequent / lighter-concentration approach, like dividing-up my fertilizer so I can give it more consistent, lighter doses - Pall doesn't advise against this *except for* what a PITA it is, so I figured that was fine - maybe 'cycling' fertilizer has benefits I haven't considered..

 

[SU2]

Change the CIRCUMSTANCES that are creating your issues--get ALL plants up off the ground--since that's where the problem plants seem to be. Stop pinching stuff incessantly, stop dumping fertilizer and insecticides at the drop of a hat. Stop watering everything so much (Misting included).

Thanks - if you have any more items I'd be happy to hear them! I've been working on building my garden (instead of acquiring new stuff), I've got a half-made table (~10' long) that I think I'll set-up today

Re pinching, I'm not pinching the affected plants - they've been growing un-checked for a couple months - the plants I pinch are freshly-collected stuff that's got leaves, like the other day I came home from with a bougie that I'd cut-back, it had a good little root system and low-enough foliage so I cut off its top and potted it - but then I went and defoliated half of it, because I know that if I don't it would wilt hard right now and that the die-back starts at the growing tips... I hadn't been pinching the affected bougies, I pinch things like the new one I just mentioned, I can't imagine it's a problem to have removed some older foliage from this

In situations of transplants, or of rooting cuttings that have foliage on them, I'll defoliate to help balance root//canopy (which I've verified in another thread was legitimate practice), and - if it's a cutting w/o roots (with foliage or without) I'll mist it - that also doesn't apply to the infested plants they don't get misted (ever) and I haven't used the hose to water them in easily 6wks after being told not to (I'd always done it because Pall advises it, but with the humidity here and enough people saying 'no', I listened and stopped)

[and fwiw, I only had that guy on the ground for the picture, so I could get a back-drop for the pic, it was put on a table afterward!]

I'm truly wanting to increase my garden's 'condition'/ecosystem, I'm going to go build that table today so nothing's left on the ground - and I'm guessing the plants in quarantine are better off just being destroyed (maybe I'll hose-blast them to get the bulk off, treat with neem, and move to the opposite side of the house - I'd rather not lose them, although if they should be tossed I'll toss them)

 

[twisted trees]

When was the yamadori collected?

 

[sorce]

5 or 6 what

Parts of.the.myriad!

Sorce

 

[sorce]

sorce says to spray an insecticide..

Eeeeew !

I hope I didn't say that!

Sorce

 

[rockm]

Ok I get you, upon googling and seeing masses of them I realize I have infestations of those on some of my hibiscus and firebush, they're in a semi-quarantine but obviously not far-enough away!

A vine took-over a part of a tree's canopy that's only ~15' from being over-head of my garden, whatever ecosystem is up there could certainly be floating down - I imagine cutting that down is a smart move?

Re fertilizing, I'm unsure if I am or not, I've had trouble finding hard #'s for fertilizing - I was fertilizing pretty hard for a couple months but then backed-off (had done some work so didn't want to 'push growth') and since then have only been doing ~75% (and have added trace minerals, so no more iron/magnesium concerns) And the sun hasn't been as good this past month, I have a large tree in my backyard and, through the year as the sun's path in the sky changes, I get different areas that suddenly don't get their midday sun - two of the 3 affected plants fit that category (although the third infested plant is in a container that I've kept in full-sun for weeks now, it was a yamadori and once it 'stabilized' and started growing I put it in full-sun and that one is getting lighter fert than the others since it's so newly-collected - it just stabilized a few weeks ago.. I guess they could've started on another bougie and migrated (how do they get around, do ants/bugs move them or do they rely on their own locomotion?)

My fert is a 24-8-16, I'd switched from a balanced fert once summer started (and am still doing the more-frequent / lighter-concentration approach, like dividing-up my fertilizer so I can give it more consistent, lighter doses - Pall doesn't advise against this *except for* what a PITA it is, so I figured that was fine - maybe 'cycling' fertilizer has benefits I haven't considered..

All this is waaay to confusing you're pinching, but your not, your fertilizing but you're not (BTW the 28-8-16 fert may account for the gross floppy overgrowth you're getting--that's a lot N and not much else) you've got stuff off the ground, except for the stuff that's on the ground.

Bottom line advice, stop being so concerned about all this. You're overanalyzing overthinking. get back to the basics, balanced fert- off he ground, PINCH NOTHING, at least half a day of direct sun.

 

[twisted trees]

When was the yamadori collected?

My guess is that there are not enough roots to support the foliage. Bogies take time to develop bonsai roots. They are naturally a vine and live off of just one or two main roots. Don't worry about it. If you must worry trim a few leaves in half. I would trim some weight off the shoots before they break. Switch to 20 20 20 fert. Have a cocktail when you finish then brag about what great things you accomplished.