Now I got a bit better pictures, my hedge is infested with these insects but I have not seen them in my container plants. The color of these insects is slightly green cream color, the body is not very soft, harder than a mosquito. It moves very fast and almost like jump. The time for hedge trimming coming and I am worry about all these insects. The hedge has no sign of any damage. I would like to get some information about these insects are they harmful to my chili, cabbage and tomato plants? I do not think they are whitefly, I saw some pictures of it in Google, but I am not sure and I do not have much experiences on insect identities. Thanks in advance. Caelian

Hard to tell. Shape-wise, they remind me of scale.

Heruga, please do not take offense!! And we are not calling you a liar. What we are trying to convey to you is a need to step back a bit and not to panic or overreact. Plant pests are a fact of gardening life. You will never eliminate them all..........nor should you necessarily, as that will upset the natural balance. But they can be managed and often they are best managed by doing very little. Or as little as you can get away with. Sometimes it is just a matter of providing the best growing conditions. Aphids are often attracted to plants that develop a lot of lush new growth from overly rich soils or unnecessary fertilization. Sometimes just growing the plants under leaner or somewhat harsher conditions will significantly reduce the risk of infestation. I will say that in all my many years of gardening, I have never seen aphids actually kill a plant, even very heavy infestations. Spraying down the plants routinely or cutting off the most affected parts (generally the newest growth) does help a lot and will keep populations at manageable levels. And encouraging beneficials or other wildlife to the garden will also make a big difference.........IME, birds are nature's most efficient "insecticide" and the more birds you can attract to the garden, the less pest issues you will you have to deal with. The point we are trying to make is that all gardeners deal with the various issues you have encountered and yet their gardens survive and even thrive. Drought, heavy or persistent rainfall, cold winters, very hot or dry summers, insect problems......we have ALL encountered them and our gardens have lived to tell the tale. What more years of experience gardening will provide is the knowledge of what is a serious problem that needs intervention (or plant replacement or substitution) and what you can safely ignore or treat as innocuously as possible. And the vast majority of us tend to steer away from heavy pesticide usage as we have learned that it upsets the natural order and very often can cause more problems than it solves. And added years of experience will often influence what sort of gardening choices you make. Some plants are just a lot harder to keep happy or are more prone to problems (like indoor citrus) so you need to weigh whether or not the plant justifies the effort. But please take the advice provided by very experienced gardeners not as a criticism but with the good intentions with which it is given. Yes, 50 years of gardening does bring one knowledge, experience and wisdom that just a couple of years doing so does not provide. It is obvious from your posts that you still have much to learn - we are just trying to help you get there :-) And even very experienced gardeners learn something new on almost a daily basis!!

Hey Riña. Quick follow-up a few months out. I ended up adding a package of around 500 or so (rough estimate) orius laevigatus out onto the planta on the balcony. I observed the orius quite closely, and never observed them stalk or attack a thrip which they would pass by or even bump into. Within a few days all of the orius flew away so they ended up being fairly useless. I still have thrips attacking the lithops seedlings and a few undoubtedly succumbed to them, but as the seedlings have grown they seem to be sustaining less damage, particularly the ones that have now developed adult lithops leaves. I’ve also observed that the population of jumping spiders has increased radically around the lithops pots and they are presumably feeding on the thrips. They haven’t eradicated the thrips by any means, but their population seems to be slightly more in check. Now that I have other flowing plants min the vicinity of the lithops there also seems to be more beneficials around in general.