I keep telling you... stop giving them wine when the moths visit. Hee, hee, hee. ;o)

LOL, every year I have to peel and squish hundreds. I guess I’ll have to cancel The Wine Festival next year

hyed..it wasn't worth it to start a post for this but I wanted to show you..

I just noticed my incrediball has an infestation of these guys going on. They are making a home right at the tips of the new growth. anything I can do or just accept the fact my incrediball is basically food

Hi Billy, every year at this time my Incrediball is loaded , what I do is peel them open and run my finger along the leaves...the moth at begin looks LIKE PEPPER I have one that give 200 hundred blooms or more..if you deadhead you lose a bloom

Ok thanks. I’ll go out and peel them open.

Oh, I think I screwed up, should have checked here first! I just cut the stuck together leaves off my Annabelles, at least 10 per plant. Have I lost most of my blooms this year? I'm in michigan, zone 5b. Thanks!

I went out and peeled them open this afternoon. Hopefully that does the trick.

Maybe not, prideofowner, as they bloom late in Michigan but you will need to keep and eye to confirm. I pruned my Annabelle after an early leaf out in February of one year and that did not affect bloomage. Hope your shrubs bloom. The flower buds are "invisible" until they open and then they look like broccoli.

Thanks, Luis, I'll keep a close eye on them. Is there anything I can do to prevent this from ocurring in the first place? I read that the plants can be sprayed before the leaves are turned into pods....

Out of curiosity, I use a Neem oil spray on my tomato plants to keep pests off of them. Would that be effective against the moths on the Incrediball?

Hi Billy’a Few year ago I was told to use Bacillus Thuringiensis (BT) it controls moth larvae (caterpillars, certain leaf eating worms )....try it just when leaves were coming out no luck... back to peeling and squishing

Thanks for the reminder hyed.

Since i peeled open the leaves from earlier in the week, I haven't had any new ones seal back up... Fingers crossed!

I peeled open all the leaves I noticed right about when this post started ... had a handful of sealed up leaves that I needed to peel and squish on over the weekend, so those that dewormed early might want to double check ...

I usually do a garden inspection daily. I have blooms all over my incrediball thanks to the early intervention.

Hello, all! I've been peeling open my Annabelle leaves and squishing the larvae for the past couple of weeks. Every morning, there are several more to take care of. How long does this go on for? I have about 15 Annabelles and three Incrediballs and I'm getting tired of this!

Oh, I'm in SE Michigan. Thanks!

Moths that stop by hydrangea arborescens (that includes Annabelle and its "cousins") and deposit their babies will create this problem in May and June. These babies develop into larvae that try to protect themselves from pesticides by covering themselves in this manner and, of course, to eat the leaves.

In small infestations, you can cut the leaves off and squish them with your fingers. But if that rates a 10,000,000 in your eek scale, you can also drop them in the trash or in beer. ;o))

The curling of hydrangea leaves could be caused by one of two insects.

The hydrangea leaftier larva binds two or as many as four leaves together with strands of silk into a cup form and then feeds and rests between them. Pulling apart the leaves will reveal a half-inch-long slender green caterpillar with a black head.

The leafroller insect also causes similar damage, but rolls only one leaf, then feeds and rests within the rolled leaf. Both insects cause unsightly damage, but won't harm the shrubs. When you see the damage in early spring, open the leaves to inspect the contents and squish the buds that you find.

Clean up the ground below the shrubs, too, because the caterpillars drop to the ground and pupate in the summer and emerge as adult moths. Look under the leaves and during the day & night.

If the infestation gets out of control, you may need to spray Bt, Bacillus thuringiensis kurstaki (DiPel, Thuricide, etc). I would suggest -next year- applying it again but earlier than when you first detected the problem this year. The damage is typically cosmetic and it would rarely kill a hydrangea. But they say to "never say never", hu? ;o))

https://www.hunker.com/1340574...

Hi Luis, thank you for the detailed reply! I don't mind squishing them with my bare hands, I'm just tired of doing it every darn day! Some of the them are as large as you describe, but some are so small I can barely see them with my glasses on. I feel as if I've killed well over a hundred by now. My neighbors must think I'm nuts, hunched over my shrubs each morning, picking apart leaves like a mother monkey picking bugs off her baby! :-/

I feel your pain. I have been in the same "position" weeding and mulching the last 4 days. No critters here though. I included a link to also help detract moths since they are apparently returning and you need to 'remove your address' from the moths' "Address Book" too. ;o) Good luck and hope you get relief soon.

The Question is does other parts of the country get the Moth...turn in next week for this Cliff Hanger.... if you’re old enough u will understand....only The Shadow will KNOW...LUIS

Oh, no. Not another cliff hanger. Hee, hee, hee.

So oddly enough, this year I got no moths on my Incrediball. As you saw in my older posts, last year the thing got attacked like crazy.

Well, I hope I will be as fortunate as you next year! I'm still squishing larvae, though fewer and fewer each day. Today, I only had to kill two - yay!