Silky cocoons on my rosemary plants???

[vtown05]

I'm not sure exactly what I have on my rosemary plants. I keep finding these little silky cocoons woven around the leaves and sometimes I find little brown or green worms in them. They crawl pretty fast when I pick them off and drop them. I haven't seen any adults. I pick them out but they keep coming back and they eat the leaves and are destroying them. I think I'm also seeing little black eggs on the plants as well. Anyone know of a way to keep these little buggers off my rosemary plants or what they even are?

[vtown05]

Correction: I used to find little worms in the silky cocoons but I haven't seen them lately, just the silky cocoons.

[vtown05]

Anyone have an idea what this could be and how to get rid of it?

[thanrose]

Nope. My rosemary is not being nibbled on by anyone other than me.

I'd think they must be a moth or skipper, but don't recall ever seeing anything like that on my rosemary plants over the years.

[vtown05]

any idea how to get rid of them?

[thanrose]

Generally, manually. Whether occupied or not, you would just pick them off. Of course, that may be problematic, depending on how well fastened they are. There is nothing but time that would remove them without your intervention. And time would still be using micromovements such as inadvertent touching or brushing to loosen the cocoons. Nothing will dissolve them exactly.

When you see the crawlers, you pick them off, too. There are applications for that, but when it's only a few you don't want to rely on insecticides.

[vtown05]

I'd much rather not use insecticides either. the cocoons or webs or whatever you call them are usually wrapped around a few of the leaves and aren't very hard to remove but I haven't seen any critters in weeks yet these little webs keep coming back and the leaves are getting eaten up. I've even gone out there at night with a light and still don't see anything.

[applestar]

I'm sorry to have to tell you that I don't know what it is either.
Though I haven't looked closely lately, only web I find in my Rosemary plants is usually spider's. this year I went a little overboard taking cuttings so I have little pots of them all over the garden.... This means I'm pretty careless about cutting off and tossing anything that doesn't belong. I watch out for spider webs because I WANT to keep them.

[vtown05]

These I'm sure aren't spider webs. I'll see if I can take a picture of them and post it tomorrow if I have time.

[vtown05]

Okay here are some pictures. I know it's kind of hard to see but this was the best my camera would let me do.









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[applestar]

Ah ha! Your mentioning worms in the "cocoons" kind of let me astray, but based on your 3rd photo, I'd say these are red spider mite webs. I see tiny white dots on the rosemary leaves, which is a classic sign, and that explains the wilted and browned new shoots.

With sturdy rosemary leaves, you can really wash them under the kitchen sink spray or outside hose spray, then on your normal watering schedule, instead of watering, give the plants a thorough wash. If you do this for two weeks or so, the spider mites should be eliminated.

[vtown05]

Cool, thanks for the info. As I said before I haven't seen those little worms in a while so I wasn't sure if it was coming from the same thing. I'm going to try and get rid of these things. Wish me luck!

[vtown05]

I CAUGHT ONE!

I went out to my garden tonight after dark and caught a few of these little guys in the webs. I knew I had seen these things and wasn't going crazy. I guess they disappear during the day or something. Any idea what it could be?



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[applestar]

Good job!
I'm not sure, but night feeders are usually moth larvae. I'm thinking army moth...

[Azgardengal]

I was wondering if you ever found a solution to these little buggers. My rosemary has them as we'll.