Old fashioned snowball shrub attacked

9 years ago

crosspost from Cottage Garden forum:

Anyone else experiencing leaf damage on their snowball shrub? I just noticed this morning the leaves are riddled like when Japanese Beetles decimate a shrub, only I saw a tiny grey worm with narrow black lines on its body all over the leaves. Never saw this before. In fact, my OFSnowball rarely is affected by much except the JBs.

The blooms are for the most part large and showy, but don't seem to be lasting as long. Quite a bit of brown already and it has only been a week since blooming began.

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Comments (4)

gardengal48 (PNW Z8/9)
9 years ago
Priobably Viburnum leaf beetle. They can cause a lot of damage, even so far as killing the plant.
schoolhouse_gw
Original Author
9 years ago
That's what I was afraid of, no leaves, no shrub. I have some Seven spray, will that help? Altho the shrub is tall so I'm not sure I could get the top.

This Snowball Bush is very old but has always been healthy and robust.
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schoolhouse_gw
Original Author
9 years ago
Well I went to the local RKO for more Seven Spray as I only has 1/4 of a bottle and it was old. On the way home I happened to notice a snowball bush in someone's front yard in the same shape. Then a viburnum at the edge of a woods with one half of it decimated. Is this a new invasion in Ohio?

The bottle of Seven was able to spray to the top of the shrub and I tried to cover as much of the foliage as possible. On a woody stem, I saw a cluster of dark red insects like mites. Then worms nearby. I hope the shrub comes out of this or I will be very sad.
Smivies (Ontario - 5b)
9 years ago
Agreed, likely Viburnum Beetle. If you can get the shrub through that first outbreak, you should be able to control the beetle on your snowball bush in years to come with much less effort.