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Southwestern Gardening

Pests on Red Yucca?

19 years ago

Our red yuccas have done just fine since we planted them 3 seasons ago, but I recently noticed that the shoot/buds of one is covered with little brownish-yellow eggs, also has a lot of ants crawling all over the eggs, and up close the other day it appeared that the eggs are hatching into *microscopic* white larvae. The yucca blooms are looking kind of funky now. What should I or can I do about this?

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Comments (3)

flattie
19 years ago
Aphids love these things. Ants farm aphids.
kim2007
Original Author
19 years ago
I thought it looked like some kind of symbiotic thing going on with the ants and the eggs! I really don't want to do anything if it's a harmless relationship between the bugs and the yucca, but it looked like the flowers were getting a little 'ookey.' We also had a severe hail storm the other night, so some of the damage may be that instead of the bugs. I'll keep an eye on it, and maybe try putting some non-antibacterial soap water on the trouble spots. I hope it doesn't spread to the other two yuccas...
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scuba-gal
19 years ago
there are also such things as yucca bugs...my friend gets them yearly and has to spray all her yuccas

Here is a link that might be useful: yucca bug info/photo

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