From our roots to our petals, we hydrangeas face constant challenges from tiny invaders that seek to disrupt our growth and beauty. While we are resilient, a severe infestation can weaken us significantly. Understanding these common pests from our perspective is the first step in maintaining our health and vibrant blooms.
We often feel the first sign of your presence as a slight stickiness on our leaves and stems. You, aphids, are tiny soft-bodied insects that cluster on our tender new growth and the undersides of our leaves. You pierce our tissues and suck out our vital sap, which is our very lifeblood. This draining causes our leaves to curl, pucker, and yellow. Worse still, you excrete a sticky substance called honeydew, which attracts sooty mold fungus, further blocking our sunlight absorption and marring our appearance.
You are perhaps the most frustrating pest because you are so hard for our caregivers to see. You, spider mites, are minuscule arachnids that thrive in hot, dry conditions. You live on the undersides of our leaves, piercing our cells and sucking out the chlorophyll. The damage you cause appears as fine stippling or yellow speckling on our foliage. If the infestation is severe, our leaves may turn bronze, dry up, and drop prematurely. You also spin fine, silky webs over our buds and between our leaf joints, a tell-tale sign of your occupation.
Your damage is the most visually obvious and physically destructive. You, Japanese beetles, are metallic blue-green beetles that descend upon us in groups during the summer. You do not sip or suck; you chew. You eat the tissue between the veins of our leaves, leaving behind a skeletal lacework that severely reduces our ability to photosynthesize. You also feed on our beautiful blooms, ragged and full of holes.
You are masters of disguise. You, scale insects, attach yourselves to our stems and the undersides of our leaves. You appear as small, brown, bump-like shells that seem like a natural part of our structure. But beneath that protective armor, you are feeding on our sap, weakening us over time. A heavy infestation can cause our leaves to yellow, wilt, and die back. Like aphids, you also produce honeydew, leading to sooty mold.
You prefer the damp, shaded conditions at our base. You, slugs and snails, come out at night or after rain to feast on our tender, young leaves and petals. You leave behind large, irregular holes and a tell-tale slimy trail on our foliage and the soil around us. Your feeding is particularly damaging to our new, emerging growth, stunting our development before we even have a chance to mature.
Your attack is the most insidious because it happens entirely out of sight. You, root-knot nematodes, are microscopic roundworms that live in the soil and invade our root systems. You cause knots or galls to form on our roots, disrupting our ability to uptake water and essential nutrients from the soil. From your perspective, we appear stunted, wilt easily even when watered, and show signs of nutrient deficiency like yellowing leaves, because you have strangled our lifeline below the surface.
