If your bonsai leaves don’t grow like before, maybe they will become sick or infected by pests and diseases. But, as there are hundred-plus types of pests, it’s not so easy to identify your tree’s affected pest category.
In this guide, do bonsai trees attract spiders; we will disclose everything to reduce your toil to save your plant from pest attract. Let’s see how
Do Bonsai Trees Attract Spiders?
Yes, the leafiest bonsai trees will frequently attract spiders and suffer from tiny yellow spots. The spider mites are the main culprit of these leaf spots and holes.
Vast knowledge about spider mites, their life cycle, identification signs, attracting reasons, treatment, and prevention tips will help you permanently get rid of it. Here’s everything one after another.
What Are The Spider Mites?
The spider mite is one kind of pest that eats your bonsai leaves, cells, and tissue. This pest species fastly grows its population on your plant leaves and does a lot of harm. However, if you find spider mites intensely on your bonsai, the tree may die.
Spider Mites Life Cycle
The spider mites have a 5 stages life cycle that starts from eggs and completes with the adult period. In between larva, protonymph and deutonymph are the two nymphal stages of this pest. If it finds a favorable temperature (approximately 80ºF) to grow from its first stage, it takes only 5-20 days to reach its adult stage.
How To Identify The Spider Mites On Bonsai?
The spider mites have an oval-shaped body with a round outer rear. It looks light yellow, orange, brown, green, sober, or almost black.
As the spider mites are very tiny, you must need a microscope or a magnifying glass to know their existence in the plant. But, what if you don’t have a microscope or a magnifying glass near you.
Nothing! Now we’ll share an exciting way to identify spider mites without this equipment.
Just keep a long piece of white paper below one branch of your tree with yellow-spotted leaves. Now, gently flick one leaf with your finger. As soon as you flick the leaf, the mites will fall on the paper, and you can see them because of their contrasting color.
Why Do Bonsai Trees Attract Spiders?
Whenever you try to solve any problem, you first have to be clear about its reasons. Otherwise, there is a high chance of being misguided and following the wrong procedure. If that happens, the situation will be like a backfire and harm your plant instead of well-being.
Study shows that this insect will grow 2.5 times faster in the warmest temperature at 40°C (104°F). And if the temperature is as low as 15°C (59°F) or cold, it will develop slowly. That means, temperature level is one of the main reasons spider mites attract.
Your plant soil’s condition is another main reason. If bonsai soil is moist for overwatering, then spider mites will attract.
And finally the hotter and drier weather is also responsible for the spider’s thrived.
Spider Mites Treatment
You can apply several methods to save your bonsai if the spiders attract them Let’s see what they are
Use homemade solution
You can make a homemade spider mite killer by pouring ⅓ of lukewarm water and 1 teaspoon of liquid dish soap into a spray bottle. Then shake the bottle to mix the ingredients properly and spray the solution over the leaves. When you apply the mixture, the soap will stick to the leaves and kill the spider by suffocating them.
Neem oil
Neem, whose scientific name is Azadirachta indica, is one of the best remedies to kill all the spider mites to save your tree ultimately. You can use neem oil, and it not only works for spider mites but also for larvae, white files, moths, ticks, and Japanese beetles. However, it is also recognized by the EPA, that’s why it is safe to use.
How to use neem oil
You can buy a gallon of neem oil from nurseries or online. You can add a few drops of neem oil with a cup of water to make a solution. Then damp a cotton ball into the solution and wipe the bonsai affected leaves with it.
But, we suggest you check the manufacturer’s instructions on the gallon’s label to know the exact procedure to use it because that will be better.
After applying the oil, it will kill the spider mites. And when you find the miles are dead, you should rinse the dead mites with running water or scrubbing a sponge to clean the leaves.
When to apply neem oil
You have to apply the neem oil after sunset. Because if you use it when your tree gets direct sunlight, the sunlight will react with the oil and overheat the plant. That is dangerous for your bonsai.
Attract ladybugs
Fortunately, all the insects are not harmful to your tree. There are some valuable insects, and ladybugs are one of them, as they eat spider mites. You can release a batch of ladybugs in the bonsai to control the spider mites population.
Do you think about how you can get ladybugs?
Yes, the largest e-commerce website Amazon is here for you. Just check this link and select your preferred ladybugs; the seller will reach them to your door.
Chemicals
If there are uncontrollable spider mites, and all those three methods fail, you must use spider mites killing chemicals. However, as the chemical is toxic, it will kill all the insects of your tree except nasty bugs.
You can use BioAdvanced as a spider mites chemical killer, and when you use it, be aware and wear goggles and hand gloves.
These are the most common, popular, and accessible solutions as the spider mites attract treatment.
How To Keep Protecting Bonsai Trees From Spiders (Tips)
- Always maintain a sound environment for your bonsai to keep it healthy. You can follow a daily and weekly routine chart to take care of it.
- If you notice that the spiders attract your tree, take action as early as possible. It’ll help you to reduce its population development, as you know, they are faster-growing insects.
- Gather knowledge about bonsai useful and harmful insect types. So that you can quickly identify and treat them as per their types.
Final Verdict
Hopefully, you get your answer; Do bonsai trees attract spiders or not? We also talk about the reasons, treatment, and prevention tips. So now you can quickly get rid of the spider mites and grow a healthy and vibrant bonsai that will charm you.
However, it’s better to take suggestions from an expert bonsai gardener about this issue. If you don’t know any Bonsai experts, you can read bonsai gardening books to get knowledge. For this, I invite you to check our best bonsai books for Bonsai lovers. Here, you have got all the essential and interesting aspects about bonsai.
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