Let's get ahead of the blankety blankleaf rollers this year!

What's your favorite method of controlling them?

I always carry a spray bottle of pyola when I do my walkabouts and make it point to sprits some in each unfurling leaf. I also carry an exacto knife to cut any silk I see. So far this method seems to work very well.

X

That's a good idea. I hate leaf rollers. Where did u get that pyola?

From Gardens Alive. It's a plant based insecticide with a canola oil carrier.

X

I went out last year and picked up "seven" so I'd be prepared.............. then didn't have any at all! How weird is that? Probbaly means this will be a bad year, but then again they're saying the 3 day hard freeze should have killed a lot of stuff so who knows.

We get good hard freezes every winter, and the rollers come back every spring. Cleaning up leaves, etc, cutting stalks helps the problem.

I've used Safer soap, some other harsh pesticide (which I NEVER do with anything else), and good ol' dish soap and water in a spray bottle.

Frankly the dish soap worked as well as anything else (and prettied the leaves up!:) )

I'm no expert-just my two cents

The new liguid Bayer systemics work very well.
Low toxicities, you can even use these on fruit trees.

OR, you can move North.
We don't have leaf rollers here :-)
But we do have Japanese Beetles )o:

What is a leaf roller? I tried to look in Bugfiles but didn't find anything.

Its a Moth Cat

theres 2 types that i know of

Japanese Beetles ?
Do they have slanted eyes ?

We don`t get them here .

Check under black and White Tiger moth i belive thats one of theam

yes Japanese Beetles have slanted eyes and they eat the plants with chop sticks to

That will explain all the Teriaki sauce over the garden edging .

And the rice....all that rice laying around the base of the plants!

am buying a couple of monkeys this year to eat the bugs in my garden

And here I was thinking they were eggs :-)

Are you just monking around ?
Or is that possible ?

Yup Yup

Kewl !

Leaf rollers are nasty little catapillars that make your canna look awful! They spin silk around a leaf so it won't open up. Here is a picture of a leaf that has been tied up.

X

And here is a picture of a leaf that has been unrolled, the damage done and the critter that does it.

X

These are all helpful ideas...as I enter my first year with cannas! I'm interested in the systemics to keep the chemicals contained to just the cannas, as I generally try to have a butterfly and caterpillar friendly garden.

At least one of the culprits is called the Brazilian Skipper (Calpodes ethlius). Its larvae or caterpillar do the damage that X shows above.

Arlan

i have lots of trouble with fritality cats on my passie so ive taken to catching theam with a big net

Arlan, I too try to keep a butterfly friendly garden. That's why I pretty much spray on demand. But in the case of canna's I'll be spritzing pyola in the leaves whether I see signs of leaf rollers or not. I did that method last year and had only a few that I didn't catch.

This year I'm going to try worm castings on my Confedrate Rose .. it's suppose to be whitefly kryptonite. Apparently it changes the chemistry of the plant to the point where whiteflies don't like it.

X

I have a huge hummingbird and butterfly garden with a pond.
With many hummingbirds, butterflies, hoverflies, dragonflies, frogs, toads, etc.

I only use the systemics on the cannas, IF and as needed.
We don't have leaf rollers, so generally we are pretty much pest free except for the Japanese beetle years.

Many "natural" products can also be detrimental to wildlife.
I found that out the hard way )o:

This message was edited Feb 23, 2007 5:20 PM

So good to know that others share the same concerns! You guys have been most helpful. I'm looking forward to the plants from rhizomes and seed, and one of my concerns is the leaf rollers. I now feel armed with a couple strategies.

Arlan

Odd thing, here.
I'm up in Zone 5, and have grown cannas religiously since 1982 (25 yrs). Last year was the first time I ever saw a leaf roller on my cannas. I caught the little bugger right away, as I am so Anal about checking every plant, up close and personal, every day- I never saw another one.

Are they generally a big problem , with southern gardeners?

Deanna