This is my first year planting cannas. They are just beginning to come up. Now I am wondering, what type of pest do I need to be aware of, so that they can survive and flower?
What Canna pest should I be aware of?
leaf roller ~ those awful things! Good Luck
A spray program with Ortho disease and insect control or something similar every 7-14 days depending on the severity of the problems applied in the cool of the evening is helpful.
Seriously, I scout for leaf rollers,bugs,harmful beetles or aphids almost every day. Wear some good disposable gloves and carry a rock and you can squish their sorry keisters without mercy. With leaf rollers you can keep them from gaining up on you with a little practice. You will notice the leaves still rolled up and taking a bit longer to unfurl. Then upon close inspection you find tiny white threads where they "sewed" the leaf closed so they could have a moist,cool place to stuff themselves and grow. When you carefully snip the threads and open it is discusting brown and the poop is everywhere. Paul my DH follows me and takes the worms to feed the fish out at the lake. lol! After the worms are harvested I simply trim the leaf and move on.
Karen
In our area I have problems with cabbage loopers. They attack any large leaf plant here, including brugs, cannas, bird of paradise, and others. I just pick them off and toss them into the yard for the birds to eat.
gardner2005~good advice.
I do the same thing, almost every evening take a stroll through my cannas, unfurl and spray any affected leaves. You have to be careful to unfurl on an angle that the "worm" does not simply fall onto the ground. I spray with a hort soap, and use BT (Bacillus Thuringiensis/Thuracide) once a month.
I also found that keeping the area on the ground around the canna's clear, clipping off old leaves and cutting back in the fall really helped reduce the leaf rollers this year.
Gardnerkett, does BT wear off with water? I never know if I need to reapply after watering?
Maybe I'll get lucky, and the leaf rollers wont live in my zone, but I'll keep an eye out just in case. Thank you.
They will live in your zone. I am in 5b and got them last year. :~(
ron~my rule of thumb is to apply pest control and NO water for 24 hours. Lots of info on the web about Bt.
B.t. is a naturally-occurring pathogen that readily breaks down in the environment. As a biological entity, it is subject to death and inactivation in the same fashion as all living things .B.t. is degraded very rapidly when exposed to UV light. Its half-life under normal sunlit conditions is 3.8 hours.
It is relatively short-lived on foliage because the ultraviolet (UV) light of the sun destroys it very rapidly, and rain washes it onto the soil. The bacterium is nonphytotoxic, or not poisonous to plants, and has not shown any adverse effect upon seed generation or plant vigor
penne~wish you a pest free and beautiful Canna garden! Always best to be proactive and keep an eye out for the first signs.
Thanks gardnerkett...seems like I need to apply at night! Those darn catterpillars!
Thanks Gardnerkett, That treatment you describe sounds like a very idea. :)
I agree with you about keeping a eye on the conditions. It is good to watch your plants the same way you check your pets every day.
Karen