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njcbrand

Wierd bug in cottony stuff on rose of sharon

njcbrand
15 years ago

Hi there,

We've recently moved to Charlotte, NC, and our new garden has lots of nice plants with lots of nice diseases/pests we've never come across before (aphids, powdery mildew, azalea laceflies, leaf gall, sooty mold) and I've used gardenweb to identify all of them, having only had healthy gardens before!

The latest is on our rose of sharons, large ones we had planted early March. There's a white cottony coating on about 2 inches of the tip of each branch, and there are little tiny bugs that look like potatoes with legs on them. I toughed one and it made a clicking noise and sprang into the air, landing on the ground several feet away. It's about the size of a capital O

The rose of sharons are just about to bloom, and I'd love to know if I should attack these things and how . . . there's also some on my clematis and my flowering almond. I'm sure it'll spread, but if it eats aphids I'll leave it!!

Thanks in advance--I've searched the forums and internet with no luck.

Comments (3)

  • deerslayer08
    15 years ago

    I had one of them on my tropical hibiscus. But only one.

  • thumbtack
    15 years ago

    I've been popping these bugs off my clematis all week, now I find them on a climbing rose and hydrangeas. They all seem to move in unison away from a finger when they're probed. Sometimes I find three to five lined up single file on a stem. There also seem to be a lot of small ants in the same area where the cottony bugs are. I took pictures this week (see them posted) and hope to check a master gardener for some identification.

    Here is a link that might be useful: Cottony bug

  • njcbrand
    Original Author
    15 years ago

    THAT IS IT!! That's exactly the bug, and the whole movement in unison thing describes it perfectly. And your photo is great--see how it looks like a potato with legs?? Anybody know what these horrid things are? I might buy some ladybugs, the county sprayed for cankerworms and we have no butterflies and very few ladybugs--not sure if it's related to the spraying. In addition to the rose of sharon, clematis, and flowering almond, they're on my forsythia and camellias now too. :(

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