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New England Gardening

I pulled up the petunias and geraniums cause

Richard Dollard

18 years ago

they were loaded with budworms I just found out. Every year I was getting these little black dots all over my annuals and then they would die. I finally did some research and found out they had budworms. They bore into the buds when they are small and just eat away and when they get bigger they eat the leaves. I can never seem to win! Sure enough as we were pulling them up the critters were trying to crawl away but they didn't make it far..LOL. Just a heads up for anyone else out there having the same problem. I sprayed with sevin but it didn't seem to do anything. Richie in Ansonia

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Comments (4)

ancag
18 years ago
Thanks for the heads up. Ok tomorrow morning, I will look them over, because mine don't look so good either. Great, another thing to worry about! :(

Hey, you can replace them with daylilies, they are 50% off at the Derby HD. I just bought 12 of them
AncaG
ellen_s
18 years ago
Petunias are a magnet for those budworms..

When I notice the obvious holes in petunia flowers in late summer, I know the dreaded caterpillars have arrived...I check carefully around the affected leaves to find the pale green caterpillars, and feed them to the very grateful catfish in our pond :-)
Do a careful search for them, and your petunias will come right back. They are very destructive so you need to try to find every one..
good luck..
Ellen
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diggingthedirt
18 years ago
This post makes me really sad, and it's not because I feel bad about the petunias, either.

Why do people reach for pesticides without checking whether they will work on the insect they're trying to control? We all know that there are side effects to these chemicals, and they should be used only when necessary and when they will actually work.

Most commonly available Garden insecticides (e.g., Sevin, diazinon) are not effective against this insect [budworm] due to insecticide resistance.

Pyrethrins offer the best control of these pests. They are available in synthetic and organic formulas. BT may also help, I'd personally try that first.

Here is a link that might be useful: budworm
Richard Dollard
Original Author
18 years ago
I'm sorry but I looked for BT at my local home center and they didn't carry it and I wasn't about to drive around all over with the price of gas the way it is now. Some websites said sevin will work and that was what was available in my local home center.

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