Forgo Butterfly Flowers if You Want Good Fall Garden

Forgo Butterfly Flowers if You Want Good Fall Garden

After growing Ageratum (Ageratum houstonianum : Bluemink, flossflower, garden Ageratum, blueweed) for a fall garden for several years, I finally put together the relationship of the Ageratum flowers, Hawaiian beet webworm moth Spoladea recurvalis, and terrible caterpillar infestation of chard, eggplants, tomatoes, potatoes, spinach, and amaranth in my fall garden. The adult moths were attracted to the Ageratum (see picture of adult on Ageratum at link below). Then they mated on my place and the moths laid their eggs on various plants listed above in my vegetable garden and the hatching caterpillers proceeded to eat them up. Infestation lasted from June through November.

I decided I liked my fresh vegetables more, so now I pull up every Ageratum I find. I am taking a food source for the adults out of the loop and stopping the reproductive cycle on my place. The horrible fall caterpiller infestation from Hawaiian beet webworm moth larvae no longer happens.

This moth is found world-wide in North America, Hawaii, southeast Asia, Australia, and Africa.

Flowers that attract butterflies and moths can lead to their larvae eating up vegetable garden plants nearby ...... so gardeners everywhere should beware.

The larvae of the Hawaiian beet webworm moth have the curious habit of folding over part of an eggplant leaf, cutting it off from main part of leaf, and riding inside the folded leaf to chard planted below to then eat on the chard.  Each morning when the larvae are present I pick up folded bits of leaves and either kill the larvae or feed them to pond fish.  I do not know if this habit is just that or an attempt to get to a food liked better below. 


Adrian R. Lawler, Ph.D.,  (C) 2011 --

See :http://bugguide.net/node/view/9731/bgimage?from=24