Description: Mealybugs are one of the harder common insect pests to eradicate in either the garden or in potted plants. Their pale pink bodies are covered in waxy threads and powdery wax and often get diagnosed as a fungal problem. Damage Caused: Mealybugs suck on the plants sap...
Description: This pest is more easily identified by the damage it causes than the insect itself. The adult form of this pest is a small moth of about 5mm wingspan that lays its eggs onto citrus young citrus leaves during the night. The larvae that hatch...
Description: This pest is more easily identified by the damage it causes than the insect itself. The adult form of this pest is a small fly of about 2mm that lays its eggs into the underside of leaves of plants such as Cineraria, Chrysanthemums, Nasturtiums and...
Description: As with most leaf mining insects this pest is more easily identified by the damage it causes than the insect itself. The adult form of this pest is a small moth with around 10mm wingspan that lays its eggs along the midrib of Azalea leaves....
Description: Aphids have long been the gardener’s foe with them attacking a wide range of ornamental and edible crops. The pests themselves are typically bulbous in shape and around 2mm in length. They come in a variety of colours such as green, yellow, pink, brown and...
Description: This pest is more easily identified by the damage it causes than the insect itself. The adults are roughly 5mm long with black/brown bodies and feature shiny, lace-like wings. The juveniles are spiny looking grubs of a similar colour to the adults but generally go...
Description: These bugs grow to around 20mm in length and range in colour from orange with black patches (females) through to darker bodied males with vivid metallic patches. Damage Caused: These bugs feed on Hibiscus both native and exotic, but cause little damage of consequence. Enjoy...
Description: A prolific pest over the warmer months also known as 'Stink Bugs'. Eggs are laid under leaves and emerge as green, flat bodied juveniles which are easily overlooked from late-winter. In the more visible stages of their life-cycle they vary between a bronze-orange...
Snails and slugs have been in the news lately but this recent notoriety has nothing to do with the damage they cause to gardens. Rat Lungworm, a menacing and potentially lethal parasite that as the name suggests typically inhabits rats can also be accidentally ingested by humans - the inadvertent vector for this infection being snails and slugs. Snails and slugs become a carrier of the parasite when they ingest the faeces of infected rodents. This parasite becomes a risk to humans when snail and/or slug contaminated plant materials are ingested. The most likely contact you might make with infected materials would be through home-grown produce. Other incidences of human infection have been caused by the eating infected molluscs’ themselves by either inquisitive toddlers (goo.gl/MVryo) or in one case a dare gone wrong (goo.gl/XUdzn).