I'm so excited that our new house is surrounded by big trees, and I'm even more excited that I have several hibiscus trees and a beautiful tree with big white flowers. We even have a few palm trees, and they all give such great shade.
However, when I took a closer look at the trees it turned out that most of the leaves have been bitten up. The palm leaves have been left alone, and the two biggest trees seem to be alright as well. Nevertheless, the other trees have leaves with lots of holes.
Now, I found this little guy, or actually I found several of his friends when I took a closer look. Please help me identify this guy, and even better tell me how to get rid off him.
We want to clear out the trees a bit, and start a nice little garden, but before I do this, I definitely need to get rid of this ugly fellow. When it comes to my veggies I do not use any chemicals, but if that's what it takes to get the guys away from the trees then I'm willing to use anything that is still safe.
This is just a fraction of the damage the bugs have done.
They seem to leave the flowers and the palm leaves alone, and so far they have not attacked the veggie plants that I have in pots a bit away from the trees.
Update:
It looks like this is the guy, do any of you know him?
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Comments: 44
He is cool looking though, too bad he is eating all the leaves on your trees.
I saw a orange ladybug on my counter, I had purchased produce at Publix.
I think you'll need to spray, with chemicals.
Leaves with large ragged holes:
Sprinkling diatomaceous earth or cinders around the plants or shallow dishes of beer placed around the plants.
Not sure if that would work though. I couldn't find anything in there specifically about that type of beetle though but then with over 3,000 types of beetles, it'd be difficult to include them all.
Lisa, I would really appreciate it, if you could find out what they used. I have tried a lot of different searches, but this little excerpt that I added was the only thing I found. No matter what I cannot use any pesticides myself as I'm pregnant, but if I figure out what is needed, then my husband will be able to do it for me. I will also make sure to ask our "landscapers" if they have run into this problem before.
eeek! bugs scare me!
I hope you were able to find out what type of bug this is.