Orange critters on my Mandevilla.

Sep 16, 2021

Aphids
by: Jacki Cammidge, Certified Horticulturist

Those look like aphids, which cluster on the new growth like that. From the pictures, that’s my guess. They sometimes do this at this time of year, for some reason. My guess is that they are living higher up in trees, but at the end of the growing season they’ll drop down onto lower plants.

They come in different colors, sometimes pale green, or black, but they’re all the same critter. If they have wings, that’s when they start to disperse to other hunting grounds.

So to get rid of them takes persistence, and you could find that they recur in the spring from overwintered eggs.

The easiest way to get them off is to use a fairly hard spray of plain water, which knocks them off the plant, leaving their feeding mouthparts behind. Use enough pressure to knock them off, but not damage the plant. Alternatively, cut off the infested parts and put them in the garbage, not in the compost.

Use Safers Insecticidal Soap, mixed to the directions on the bottle, which is safe for plants and the environment (mostly) although it will also kill beneficial insects that feed on aphids too.

I like natural remedies – if you see ladybug larvae (they look like tiny alligators) mother nature has got there first. Just let her deal with it.