The viburnum was eaten by black midges. How and with what to treat viburnum against aphids

Viburnum, so named for the color of its berries - fiery red, like hot iron - grows in almost every summer cottage. Unfortunately, in every garden it is also subject to attacks by insects that can deprive the bushes of vitality in a short time. How, how and when to treat viburnum for aphids in order to prevent pests from actively reproducing is a topic of concern to summer residents.

Black aphid

As soon as the first buds on the viburnum bloom, the black (viburnum) aphid occupies the young shoots. Deprived of vital juices, young leaves become deformed and curl. Dark spots of various shapes appear on them, which leads to complete drying and death of young branches. In one season, several generations of aphids appear, and the first is equipped with wings - it has the ability to move from bush to bush, capturing all plants, not just viburnum.

The last generation overwinters at the base of the bush and, at the first signs of the beginning of spring, rushes up the trunks, getting closer to the buds that are beginning to swell. That is why active pest control begins in early spring.

The viburnum aphid causes damage to the entire area, but the main habitat is viburnum bushes. All the main means of struggle are used on them.

There are two main stages in the fight against black aphids.

1. Creating the most unfavorable conditions for laying eggs of the last, wintering generation. To do this, you have to cut out without regret all the basal shoots, which abound in viburnum bushes. It is optimal to carry out such thinning of the base of bushes in the second half of summer.
2. Spring treatment of bushes against pests using chemicals or folk remedies.

In the first days of spring, before using any pest control, the trunks of viburnum bushes are cleared of exfoliated old bark - most pests hibernate under it. After all the debris has been removed, the ground under the bush is watered with hot water.

Application of pesticides

The first treatment is carried out as soon as the spring sun warms up. During this period, pests emerge from hibernation and begin moving towards the kidneys. The most effective drugs include:

• "Aktara";
• "Decis";
• "Prestige";
• "Karbofos";
• "Fufanon."

Viburnum should be sprayed against pests in dry, windless weather using personal protective equipment.

Good results are obtained by treating viburnum with a Nitrafen solution at the rate of 200 g of product per 10 liters of water. The drug also needs to be sprayed on the homes of ants that carry aphids.

It is permissible to poison pests with chemicals only in early spring, since later application will harm pollinating insects, especially bees.

Folk remedies

The fact that folk remedies are less effective in combating aphids is a fairly common misconception. Their effectiveness is no lower than industrial pesticides if they are prepared and applied according to all the rules. At the same time, solutions prepared according to “grandmother’s” recipes can be used throughout the entire growing season. But it is better not to wait until the pest has firmly established itself on the viburnum, but to spray the affected plants immediately after detecting the pest.

• Soap solution

Prepared from laundry or green soap - 300 g per bucket of water. The treatment is carried out 2-3 times a week, after washing the bush with water from a hose under moderate pressure. Instead of soap, you can use one of the most inexpensive washing powders.

• Ash infusion

A glass of ash is brewed with a liter of boiling water and left for a day. Then add 40-50 g of soap or washing powder, bring the volume to 10 liters. Spray viburnum once a week.

• Ammonia

The solution is prepared from 20 ml of alcohol and a bucket of water. Viburnum is treated against pests twice, less often - three times, the interval between spraying is 2 weeks.

• Tobacco infusion

250 g of tobacco or shag are infused in 5 liters of water for 2 days. Then filter, add 5 liters of water and treat the bushes.

• Pharmaceutical chamomile

Take 1 kg of dried flowers in a bucket of hot water and leave for 12 hours. Strain the infusion, add 2 parts water to 1 part infusion. The plants are treated with the prepared solution immediately after mixing.

• Pyrethrum (Caucasian chamomile)

300 g of crushed dried flowers are poured with a small amount of boiling water, left for 2 hours, filtered, water added to 10 liters and immediately sprayed with viburnum - the herb successfully fights many pests of garden crops.

Dried pyrethrum flowers can be purchased at pharmacies or garden centers under the trade name Persian Powder. The manufacturer indicates recommendations for use on the packaging.

• Needles

Pine or spruce needles are crushed and steamed with boiling water at the rate of 200 g of dry raw material per liter of water. The infusion is kept tightly sealed for two days, after which the affected bushes are sprayed with it.

• Henbane black

If there are thickets of this plant nearby, take young rosette leaves (about 200-300 g), pour a bucket of hot water and leave for 13 hours. Before spraying, add 30-50 g of liquid soap to the infusion.

Black henbane is a poisonous plant; be careful when working with it. Leaf celery.

To attract small birds (tits, warblers, linnets), feeders, drinking bowls, and nesting houses are equipped for them.

If attracting natural enemies of aphids to a site is one of the components of pest control, pesticides are used extremely carefully.

All means are good in the fight against aphids in the spring. Their competent and timely use will protect a beautiful bush with healthy berries from pests and get a good harvest.

Lush viburnum bushes are widely used in landscape design. They are beautiful at any time of the year: covered with beautiful green leaves, delicate white inflorescences or red fruits, viburnum becomes the decoration of the site. However, even she is not immune from attacks by pests, which cause significant harm to the bush. Most often, viburnum is attacked by aphids - a very small but terribly harmful insect.

How to recognize aphids?

The black aphid loves viburnum the most. These are small dark brown insects with great fertility. They lay eggs on the bark near the buds, from which larvae emerge in the spring. The larvae begin to eat the tender young leaves, and the bush stops developing. If immediate control is not started, adults will lay many new eggs in the fall, and the same thing will happen again in the spring.

Viburnum affected by aphids can easily be distinguished from other plants: first, a cluster of insects appears on young shoots, then the leaves curl and the bush stops growing.

Folk remedies against aphids

Aphids on viburnum must be destroyed at the very beginning, before they begin to multiply. In the initial stages, spraying will help:

1. Soapy solution. Dissolve 300 g of grated soap (laundry soap) in a bucket of water and carry out 3 treatments within a week. Wash off dead insects with water from a hose.
2. Tobacco infusion. Add 250 g of tobacco to 5 liters of water and leave for two days. Strain and add another 5 liters of water.
3. A solution of ammonia. Pour 20 ml of alcohol into a bucket of water. Treat twice with a break of two weeks.

Before starting treatment, regardless of the method used, it is necessary to destroy the young root shoots on the viburnum, where aphids prefer to lay eggs.

Anti-aphid drugs

If the moment is missed, and the entire bush has already actively invaded, more effective means will be needed. Among the special pest control products that have proven themselves well are:

Preventive actions

To prevent the appearance of aphids on viburnum, every spring you need to clean the bush of old peeling bark, under which there may be masonry, and whitewash the trunk with lime. You should also regularly cut out root shoots and tops.

If there are ants in the garden that contribute to the development of aphids, it is necessary to get rid of them by pouring boiling water over the areas where they accumulate. But some insects, such as ladybugs, should be attracted to the garden because they eat aphids.

Treatment of viburnum from aphids - video

Viburnum is a shrub or small tree belonging to the Adoxaceae family. Viburnum is valued for its ease of cultivation and care, decorative appearance from late spring until the first snow, and beneficial properties of both bark and berries. Even after the leaves have fallen, viburnum continues to delight the eye with its scarlet berries, which look especially impressive against the backdrop of snow.

It should be noted that not all types of viburnum have edible fruits. The well-known species with the French name Buldenezh is exclusively decorative and is known for its gorgeous white inflorescences in the form of snow globes.

Flowering viburnum continues for 30 - 40 days, starting in May. Large umbrella inflorescences of white color can be tinged with pink and reach 10 cm.

Under natural conditions, viburnum grows in areas with moist soil - near rivers, streams, lakes. In total, there are more than 160 species of these plants, of which several dozen are found in Russia.

Planting viburnum

Viburnum is a moisture-loving plant, so it grows best in moist areas in partial shade on slightly acidic soils with pH = 5.5–6. However, the place should be well lit, but preferably not in direct sunlight. In completely shady places, viburnum will also grow, but the bloom will be noticeably weaker.

Viburnum is planted in autumn or early spring. Autumn plantings show better plant survival. The planting hole is 50 cm wide and 40 cm deep. In the pit, a soil mixture is prepared from the top layer of soil, to which 6 kg of humus is added, well mixed with a glass of wood ash and peat. The ratio of peat to the rest of the soil is 1:3. If the soil is not rich in humus, then add 100 g to the hole and mix thoroughly.

The seedling is placed in a hole so that the root collar is buried from 3 to 5 cm. After planting, a hole is formed around the bush and watered with 20 liters of water. Then mulch with peat or straw.

When planting several seedlings, they are located at least two meters from each other.

Viburnum care

Caring for viburnum consists of:

• feeding
• pruning
• pest prevention

In addition, moisture-loving viburnum needs watering during dry periods.

Feeding

In early spring, viburnum is fed with a complex feed - 50 grams per bush. To do this, you need to remove the mulch, add fertilizer, loosen the soil and water the plant. After feeding, it is necessary to re-mulch the bush. In the fall, root fertilizing is done with ash - 1 cup per bush or superphosphate in the amount of 60 grams.

Trimming

Viburnums are pruned in early spring. Its task is to thin out the bush so that there is access to fresh air inside it, to remove shoots that grow inward, as well as weak, broken and dry ones.

By pruning, the plant itself is formed, growing it in the form of a tree, leaving one trunk, or in the form of a bush - several large shoots.

After 5–6 years, rejuvenating pruning is carried out, removing old shoots. It is better to carry out such pruning not at once, but over two years - cut half of the shoots in one year, the rest in a year. This way the viburnum will tolerate pruning without unnecessary stress.

Prevention of pests and diseases

Viburnum is often damaged by pests such as viburnum leaf beetle and aphids. And if measures are not taken in time, the plant will lose all its decorative properties.

Already in early spring it is important to treat viburnum from pests. It should be noted that the viburnum leaf beetle lays eggs in dry twigs of the plant. Accordingly, to prevent the appearance of caterpillars of this dangerous pest in the spring, in the fall, after the leaves have fallen, you need to carefully examine the bush and remove dried parts of the branches at the edges of the shoots. Cut parts of the shoots must be destroyed.

The plant is treated against powdery mildew - you can treat it with this drug in the spring for the purpose of prevention.

Viburnum propagation

Viburnum is propagated:

• dividing the bush
• cuttings
• layering
• seeds

Reproduction by dividing the bush

With this method, the bush is carefully divided into several parts. Each part should have 2 - 3 shoots with developed renewal buds.

Propagation by cuttings

In June, green cuttings are cut, 8–10 cm long with three nodes. An even cut is made from the bottom of the cutting at an angle and the lower leaves are removed, leaving a couple at the top, cutting them in half. The cuttings are soaked for 10 hours in a root formation stimulator and planted in a greenhouse. In the fall, they are planted in open ground in a permanent place, covered with straw or spruce branches for the winter.

Typically, cuttings involve keeping the germinated cuttings indoors and planting them in open ground only in the spring. But viburnum shows good survival even after such autumn planting of cuttings.

Reproduction by layering

In spring, a low-lying shoot is bent and placed in a prepared groove. Cover with soil and secure with wire. The upper part of the shoot remains in the air and is tied vertically. By autumn, roots will form on such a shoot. The shoot is cut off from the mother plant, divided into parts and planted in a permanent place.

Propagation by seeds

The most labor-intensive method. Before sowing, viburnum seeds are stratified. At the end of February, the seeds are sown in containers filled with peat mixture. In the spring, when warm weather without frost sets in, the seedlings are transplanted into open ground, protected from the sun for two months.

Viburnum is a plant whose healing properties have been known to people since ancient times. The unpretentious crop grows quickly and bears fruit. However, like other flowering shrubs, it can be susceptible to various diseases. The planting especially suffers from attacks - insects that infect literally all fruit trees, preventing them from growing or blooming. Therefore, the question of how to deal with aphids on viburnum is of concern to every owner of a personal plot.

About black aphids and the harm they cause

Black aphids on viburnum are one of the most common pests that live on shrubs. The small insect sucks out the beneficial juices of the plant. At the end of summer, mature females lay eggs in the basal shoots, where they subsequently overwinter.

With the arrival of warm days, larvae emerge from the laid eggs and begin to feed on the sap of young leaves. The result is curling and deformation of the leaves, as well as the appearance of dark spots on them. This in turn leads to damage to young shoots and their drying out.

And if you do not protect the viburnum in time, then it is unlikely that you will be able to wait until its useful fruits are harvested. Since at the end of spring, the stronger larvae turn into winged individuals capable of reproduction, the mating of which increases the size of the pest population significantly. By winter, they lay eggs, and the cycle repeats again. In this connection, the fight against aphids on viburnum should be carried out in a timely manner and begin even before the first leaves appear.

The black aphid spends its entire life on viburnum, resulting in several generations being born. However, the pest can also attack other plants. Therefore, in order to save viburnum and other crops in the garden, it is necessary to destroy aphids as quickly as possible, since in the early stages of the pest’s “dispersal” this is much easier to do.

How to deal with aphids

Pest control is carried out in several stages.

1. Having discovered black aphids on viburnum, it is necessary to destroy its possible wintering site. To do this, you need to cut out the growth located near the root. This will make it impossible for the pest to lay eggs in its favorite place.
2. The next step is to use chemical or folk remedies to treat the bush.

Chemicals

It is necessary to fight aphids on viburnum with help in early spring. Many gardeners are puzzled as to which product is best to use. Experts recommend using systemic agents in such a situation. Absorbed into the plant tissue, they negatively affect insects that feed on the sap of this crop.

It is preferable to use drugs based on neonicotinoids or organophosphorus compounds to combat aphids. These include:

• Karbofos;
• Decis;
• Prestige;
• Fufanon;
• Aktellik and others.

Before the buds appear, the viburnum bush can also be treated with Nitrafen infusion (200 g of product per 1 liter of water). We should also not forget that one of the main reasons for the spread of aphids is ants that feed on the pest’s secretions. Therefore, similar means are used when an ant nest is discovered in a personal plot.

Folk remedies

However, despite the effectiveness of pesticides, many gardening enthusiasts prefer to do without chemicals because they are much safer. And when used correctly and regularly, they are no less effective. Therefore, to treat viburnum against aphids during flowering, it is preferable to use various herbal infusions and decoctions. After all, toxic components may end up on flowers, as a result of which the bees pollinating the bush will also suffer.

Ash

Herbs

Herbal infusions are also effective against aphids. Wormwood, yarrow, dandelion, tansy or crushed and poured boiling water in a ratio of 1:10. Boil for 30 minutes and leave for 1-2 days. After which the planting is treated with the strained infusion.

You can also spray viburnum in the spring and. Many insects cannot stand its smell, and aphids are no exception. To prepare a tobacco solution, 250 g of the product is poured into 5 liters of water and infused for 2 days. The strained infusion is supplemented with the same amount of water and used in a similar way.

Potato tops

When aphids attack viburnum, you can also use potato or tomato tops. 1 kg of product is crushed and poured into 10 liters of water. The mixture is boiled for 30 minutes. Then leave for 1 day. Then it is filtered and used for spraying. It is preferable to prepare such an infusion in advance, since the more it is infused, the more concentrated and effective its composition will be.

Needles

An infusion of pine needles is no less effective against aphids. 200 g of the product must be steamed with one liter of boiling water and left in an airtight container for at least 2 days. Next, the infusion is filtered and used for its intended purpose.

Laundry soap

You can also spray viburnum in May against aphids. A bar of laundry soap is grated and diluted in 10 liters of water. The resulting solution is used to irrigate the viburnum branches affected by the pest.

They have also proven effective in controlling aphids.

Aphids also often appear on viburnum buldenezh, a tall ornamental bush with white flowers. In this case, you can fight the pest using any of the above methods.

In May, the first winged individuals, ready for reproduction, appear on the viburnum. After mating, some insects move to other viburnum bushes and lay eggs. With the advent of a new spring, everything starts all over again.

Have questions?

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Aphids on viburnum, how to fight?

What to do if there are aphids on the viburnum? Chemical agents can successfully combat black aphids on viburnum. Under their influence, paralysis occurs in insects. They simply cannot feed anymore and soon die. Chemical products are made on the basis of insecticides. A tiny dose of these substances is enough to kill an entire colony of pests.

The advantages of fighting aphids with chemicals include the speed of action of poisons and the fact that under their influence all aphids on viburnum die, that is, adult insects, larvae, even eggs. In addition, these drugs retain their toxic properties for 20 days after treatment.

You can buy such products in flower shops. They are sold in the form of a concentrate. Before use, dilute the product with water. Typically, the packaging indicates instructions for use based on diluting the concentrate per 10 liters of water.

Treat viburnum bushes against aphids using rubber gloves in the absence of wind. It is advisable to use a respirator.

Gardening stores will tell you which chemicals to buy. By and large, all these drugs have an effective effect on aphids. So you can use any of them. During the first week, aphids die en masse, then this process slows down. After 20 days, the effects of these drugs stop.

Before the first leaves appear, viburnum can be treated with Nitrafen paste. Later, the viburnum bushes need to be sprayed with any of the above products.

Eco-friendly pest control products

This is a good preventive method. In late autumn, cut off the young shoots that appear at the base of the viburnum trunk. Aphids readily lay eggs on it. In the spring, before flowering begins, generously water the soil around the viburnum with very hot water. This will kill the eggs and larvae of the aphids.

Aphids are happily eaten by hoverflies, lacewings, and ladybugs.

A solution of ammonia is actively used against garden pests.

An infusion of onion peels will help get rid of aphids on viburnum. These insects cannot stand the smell of the infusion, but do not die from it. In order to enhance the effect of the infusion, add laundry soap, wood ash, and tobacco to it. It takes a long time to prepare, but is not difficult. To do this, you need to take 200 grams of onion peels, 500 grams of wood ash, 200 grams of tobacco. Mix the ingredients and add 10 liters of water. Leave the remedy for five days. Then strain the infusion, dissolve a bar of laundry soap in it.

Spray the viburnum with this infusion every week until all viburnum pests leave the bush.

Here's what else you can use to spray viburnum against aphids. The product is prepared by eye. Add wood ash, spices, and soap solution to the water. Any spices can be used. This is, for example, red or black pepper, cinnamon or cloves. One day is enough to infuse the product. Then strain the infusion and start spraying the viburnum. This infusion should be used for the first time in the spring. Then the procedure can be repeated every month.

No less effective in the fight against aphids is another infusion. Take 200 grams of garlic, tobacco, pine needles, fill them with 10 liters of water. Boil for half an hour. After five days of infusion, the decoction is ready for use. Add a little liquid laundry soap to it so that the broth does not drip from the leaves and branches of the viburnum.

Perhaps you have an exotic variety of viburnum buldenezh growing, reaching a height of three meters. So you ask: how to treat buldenezh against aphids? Use the same methods for controlling black aphids as for ordinary viburnum.