The Best Ways For Lace Bug Treatment That Works In Your Garden

About Lace Bugs?

There are 140 known species of lace bugs in North America, belonging to the Hemiptera (or true beetle) family Tingidae.

Like all true beetles, adults and nymphs have needle-like mouthparts that they use to suck sugary plant sap.

The tipworms concentrate on the underside of the leaves of deciduous and evergreen trees and shrubs, leaving small white or yellow spots on the top.

Their hosts include rhododendron, linden, elm, hackberry, hawthorn, lantana, oak, pyracantha, rhododendron, and sycamore.

The damage is most pronounced when the population is high in the middle and late summer. If fed too much, the leaves may fall off prematurely.

They also produce small, black droppings where they feed. These are sometimes called paint spots.

The damage caused by these pests is mostly superficial and usually does not affect the health of the plant, especially if it is a healthy mature tree or shrub.

Recognize

Species you find in your garden are usually from the Stephanitis genus, including Rhododendron (S. pyrioides), Corythucha, which includes Hawthorn (C. cydoniae) and Hackberry (C. celtidis), or Leptodictya, which includes those that attack ornamental grasses , such as L. plana.

There are many other types, but these are the most common.

While identifying these species based on their appearance is not easy, these insects are easy because most are host-specific.

So, if you’ve spotted a suspicious earworm on a rhododendron or other garden plants listed above, it’s not that hard to figure out what species it is.

However, as the details of biology, life cycle and management techniques are the same for all pest species, it is not important to determine exactly which species you are dealing with.

Generally, nymphs are dark in color, have no wings, and have a flat oval body with spines protruding in all directions.

Adults are one-eighth to one-third of an inch long and have finely sculpted, translucent, lacy wings that spread out from their abdomens.

Adult stephanitis and corythucha have flat, oblong bodies. They are usually clear to slightly amber in color. Their eggs are transparent, off-white and football-shaped.

For example, the rhododendron earworm S. pyrioides is transparent with dark patterns on its wings.

C. cydoniae, the hawthorn type, has dramatic, angular, translucent wings, an ear-like bra, and tan markings.

Adult Leptodictya is more slender than species in the other two genera, gray-green to light brown in color. They lay dark brown barrel-shaped eggs.

L. plana, for example, is light green-brown in color, and its wings appear to be made of finer lace than the other two species mentioned above.

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Biology And Life Cycle

The life cycle of these insects can last 30 to 40 days, with several generations per year.

In the spring, the moths fly to their hosts and eat the first fresh leaves. They mate and lay a small cluster of small eggs under the leaves near the midrib.

Some species will partially insert each egg into leaf tissue, and some will seal their eggs with a brown substance that hardens on top like a scab.

The nymphs hatch from the eggs after about two weeks. Nymphs feed for three to four weeks and go through five stages during their growth. They let their peeled skin stick to the leaves.

Once mature into winged adults, they mate and lay a second round of eggs, which hatch, molt, and become adults, feeding until late summer or fall.

Stephanitis species overwinter as eggs in bark cracks or leaf fragments, whereas Corythucha and Leptodictya species overwinter as adults in host leaf fragments. In evergreens, adults can overwinter on the surface of leaves.

Best Ways For Lace Bug Treatment

To determine when to begin management practices and what control methods to choose, you should keep a close eye on these pests before their population numbers and the uncontrolled damage they cause.

Damage to the top of the leaf may look like spider mite feeding damage, but you can easily tell the difference by flipping the leaf over and using a handheld lens to locate the insect.

Additionally, spiky bugs make the bottom look dirty and speckled due to the paint stains, scaly membranes and eggshells they leave behind. And these insects also jump when disturbed.

Begin monitoring susceptible plants in late spring. Damage is usually not discovered until late in the season, so waiting for damage is not a reliable preventative method for predicting problems.

Organic Control Methods

Overall, these insects are tolerable to your plants, as they usually do not cause enough damage to warrant control.

Healthy trees and shrubs are not significantly affected by feeding on spiky bugs, but damaging them can spoil the aesthetics of the plant.

In the case of severe damage, control measures may be required. While these control methods will not eliminate the damage, they will prevent further problems.

In this case, use an integrated pest management (IPM) strategy to reduce pest populations by combining the various approaches outlined below.

Cultural and Physical Control

Keeping plants alive long before pests become a problem is an essential step that will give your flora a better chance of surviving an insect infestation.

Shrubs such as rhododendrons seem to suffer the most from these insects when grown in full sun and heat. If possible, plant susceptible plants known to contain lace bugs in partial shade.

Nymphs don’t have wings, so use a strong stream of water in a hose to drive them away from the underside of the leaves.

Keep the soil under the plant bare, raking away any leaves or debris to remove overwintering adults or eggs that may be hiding, or plow debris into the soil.

Remove any weeds from the garden that could serve as alternative hosts for beetles.

Since each species of this pest has its own specific host, planting a variety of ornamental shrubs rather than a population of one species will help reduce spread in the event of an infestation.

Biological Control

Biological control that exploits the predator diversity provided by nature is a useful long-term control method. Predators are very effective at keeping populations down and controlling small outbreaks.

Assassin bugs, jumping spiders, pirate bugs, mites, ladybugs, green lacewings, and parasitic wasps (such as mymarids) all target spiky bugs.

Attract and maintain healthy populations of these beneficial insects by growing a variety of flowering plant species in your garden.

Organic Pesticides

Chemical Pesticides