Snowy buggy on Seiju Elm

swatchpost

Hello All! Guess what? I have my first critter of the year—and it's doing major harm to my Seiju Elm of about 14 years.

I'm sorry guys, I tried to take a picture of it, but my camera, being what it was, could not zoom in and get a close enough picture without it going completely out of focus—so instead—you're going to have to visualize my description and maybe SOMEONE out there has had some experience with this strange critter. Okay:

Basically this thing is making the small leaves of the Seiju curl inwards on themselves to where it almost makes a little cave for the thing. There's what looks like a snowy powdery residue around the outside of the three or four leaves that have curled up (that snowy residue can be brushed or blown away). When I try to un-curl the leaf I see a small bug maybe two millimeters long and one millimeter wide that is essentially black and white and is ribbed in alternating black and white stripes along it's width.

Has anyone had ANY experience with anything like this? I've checked all my books and found nothing to classify the pest.

Hope to hear from you all soon, because I would love to eradicate this problem!!!

Thanks!

Yusef

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ovation22

From your description it sounds like a wooly aphid.

http://wiki.bonsaitalk.com/index.php/Wooly_aphid

I use Ultra Fine pesticide oil (found at garden centers) with much success.


Good luck,
John

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John Callaway
Matsu Bonsai blog

Bonsai Questions - Well, it depends

RedPine

Walmart sells a product called "Shultz Expert Gardener Fungicide3", it runs 5$ and will knock out and help prevent most pest and fungi we deal with in bonsai culture. I have been using it for nearly a decade and it is 100% all natural neem oil mixture so it is a safe around the house product as well. Get you a bottle of this from the garden center, box store , walmart etc etc and follow the directions on the bottle and the indects will hate you for it.

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crankykitty

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