4 Common Boxwood Pests

Boxwoods create the perfect backdrop for all the flowers in your garden. They also create a natural privacy fence between you and your neighbors or the road. So, when they come under attack, it can create turmoil in your landscape. Thankfully, you have the Nature's Select Sandhills team to help you. We can easily take care of these common boxwood pests.

1. Leafminer

The leafminer is often mistaken for a mosquito, but it's just an annoying fly that tends to attack boxwoods. It's not uncommon for homeowners to see swarms of them around their bushes in the spring and summer. Unfortunately, leafminers can take out entire patches of boxwoods if left untreated. The larvae burrow in the leaves and create blisters before winter and then emerge, leaving large holes on the underside of the foliage.

2. Psyllid

These insects are green-greyish suckers that resemble cicadas, but with transparent wings. Psyllid nymphs extract the sap from young foliage buds. As a result, infested foliage becomes cupped, and branches tend to stop growing. However, the psyllid growing season is short and early, so most boxwoods outgrow the damage by midsummer.

3. Spider Mite

Unfortunately, boxwoods are the only known host for spider mites. These pests tend to feed off the leaves, injecting a toxin that causes leaves to turn yellow. They love new plant growth, so getting your boxwoods treated in the spring is your best defense. However, this pest goes through many different life stages, resting between feeding days, so it can be difficult to pinpoint just how serious your spider mite problem is.

4. Japanese Wax Scale

Japanese wax scale is incredibly unique in that there are no males. Females tend to lay their eggs on leaves and coat them in heavy wax. Females can lay anywhere between 1,000 to 2,000 eggs at a time. Unfortunately, these pests are immovable once the eggs hatch and the suckers take hold. The best defense from the wax scale is early treatment and even physical removal of wax once it appears.

We Care for All Your Shrubs

Nature's Select Sandhills not only cares for your boxwoods, but we also care for all your trees and foliage. It's our mission to help residents throughout Sandhills and Pinehurst, NC, create the perfect landscape. So, it all starts with our biological approach and special treatments. We even offer aeration and seeding and tree and lawn disease prevention. So, give us a call today at (910) 757-0359.