I having a problem with the little green bastards but I'd never consider using a pesticide. I suffer with swiss cheese foliage and lost buds. I pick them off by hand and toss them in the goldfish pond ; )

Got no Brugs right now but the 2 Key lime bushes are infested with Lime butterfly larvae... they look like bird droppings.. and each day in the morning I see many mama lime butterflies laying more eggs on it, one thing I am happy about is my Jasmine vine and Damask rose which are very close to the limes are completely untouched..

Izhar

Karen- you're a better person than I am! I know it's bad for everything, but my babies are suffering from them! Izhar- what zone are you in? Key lime bushes- must be nice! Thanks guys!
kasha77

Izhar that's one of the Swallowtail butterflies. They are beautiful and I'd gladly sacrifice some citrus foliage to them. The Giant Swallowtail in the states uses citrus as a host plant and the larvae also look like bird droppings.

I have found a few on my citrus.. They are hungry little buggers and the plants look horrible but well worth it..
Kathy I will trade you the f#$$#@% grasshoppers for your little green worms any day.. besides my spiders are sick of having hoppers for supper..LOL

Kylie

Hand-pick and then stomp!!!! LOL!

Dipel is supposed to take several days to work and by then, bye-bye leaves and buds!

Actually our new home is at the border of the metropolitan, I grew up in the busy city surroundings and our recent home is completely opposite to it.. lots of inhabitants around us, not referring to humans..:) ..reptiles, bugs, birds, mongooses and squirrels etc and after the recent monsoon rains, we sleep listening concerts of Frogs and Toads, they never tire singing their love songs..lol

Its a sub-tropic climate with mild winter (no freeze) and hotter summers, rains three months a year and scarcely..

Key limes are wonderful shrubs, the flowers are fragrant and and the leaves too..! we are using the fruits as replacement to Lemons... hundreds of them still on these two 8' tall bushes...

There are lots of other butterflies and moths too... but unfortunately unable to recognize them for now..

Izhar

I have guineas they work well for grass hoppers they feast on all kinds of bugs fertilize as they go too. I did the sevin dust and it worked ok then I got this product with spinosad its a green product so Karen you can use this too! I originally bought this for citrus need I googled and found it for the brugs too check it out. Spinosad is the active ingredient. ... Dana

None right now, but I've seen the birds pick off the green worms from the brugs so they do the work for me.

I would pick them off myself if I thought they were destroying the plant. Most of the time I get a few holes and then the birds take over.

I have been growing these cats (more than 11) in an abandoned aquarium, they turned from tiny hairy creatures to chrysalis, today one adult emerged out of eight chrysalis, thought I share its pics:

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In the first pic you can see 3 chrysalis, a fresh green, one with spotted butterfly visible inside and one empty, the second pic is of ex-resident of the empty shell in pic above it..

Izhar

Very cool Izhar! I have hatched Black Swallowtails in the house..

Dana the guineas wouldn't stand a chance out here.. To much other wildlife they would just be a snack for something. The coyotes were so close last night one of the heelers was singing along..LOL wasn't very funny at 3 in the morning I wanted to choke her...

Kylie

Izhar that's beautiful. Dana that sounds like a promising pesticide. I won't use it outside because of all the caterpillars that I do want but will definitely consider using it over the winter in the greenhouses.

Here is a link that might be useful: spinosad

Thanks for the tip on Spinosad- I will certainly look it up. Lately, I've been walking around with a pair of scissors and cutting pests in half- even those large grasshoppers. Seems like the worms hide during the day and do their damage at night.
kasha77

This is my first year having brugs. The ones that are on my deck,
have had the most problems with bugs. First slugs, then the green
caterpillars. The leaves are looking like swiss cheese too. Now the
one's in the garden are being left alone. Go figure.