Mellisa’s caterpillar on my Mountain Laurel!
Hello, I have a quite young mountain laurel (central Texas area). it just produced its first blooms this year and I’ve been so happy. We now have a family of Melissa’s Caterpillars (brown moth) and I’m afraid it has devastated my poor tree. I plan on cutting what’s gone then giving them some of my oak tree that can afford to lose some leaves. How likely is my Mountain Laurel to survive this?
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@SacredBetel36 while I’m not a tree expert, I would think your mountain laurel could absolutely survive this, if you act quickly and get them treated. Do these caterpillars make webbing? If not, I’d be concerned about spider mites as well. The picture is a little blurry in the spots I’m trying to zoom in on, but are there also white fluffy cotton looking bits congregated around the stems and in the crevices? Possibly mealybugs too 😖 If you do not want to harm these caterpillars, I would try to remove as many as you can and then treat your mountain laurel. Hose as many pests off of it with a strong jet of water first, and then a good basic and natural pest treatment is:
-1 Tablespoon pure neem oil, mixed with
-1/2 teaspoon Castile soap (I like Dr bronners peppermint), mixed with
-32 oz (4 cups) water
Mix that in a spray bottle, and spray it all over your plant. Tops and bottoms of leaves, stems, petioles, top of soil.
Spray it thoroughly until it’s dripping off. Give it a gentle shake afterwards to get the drips and any puddles off. Then let air dry, and keep out of the sun during treatment because it will make your plant photosensitive (apt to sunburn). If your laurel is in the ground, if you have some shade cloth, that will help while they are in treatment.
Neem oil starts to lose efficacy after about 12 hours so it’s important to mix up a fresh batch each time! I also shake the bottle regularly during and between spraying.
Also want to let you know mites and mealybugs need more than one or two treatments. You can stop them by spraying every 3 days for 6 weeks.
If I’m wrong and these caterpillars are indeed the ones making the webbing, I would still give your laurel several treatments, a few days apart, to be on the safe side.
-1 Tablespoon pure neem oil, mixed with
-1/2 teaspoon Castile soap (I like Dr bronners peppermint), mixed with
-32 oz (4 cups) water
Mix that in a spray bottle, and spray it all over your plant. Tops and bottoms of leaves, stems, petioles, top of soil.
Spray it thoroughly until it’s dripping off. Give it a gentle shake afterwards to get the drips and any puddles off. Then let air dry, and keep out of the sun during treatment because it will make your plant photosensitive (apt to sunburn). If your laurel is in the ground, if you have some shade cloth, that will help while they are in treatment.
Neem oil starts to lose efficacy after about 12 hours so it’s important to mix up a fresh batch each time! I also shake the bottle regularly during and between spraying.
Also want to let you know mites and mealybugs need more than one or two treatments. You can stop them by spraying every 3 days for 6 weeks.
If I’m wrong and these caterpillars are indeed the ones making the webbing, I would still give your laurel several treatments, a few days apart, to be on the safe side.
