Cat(h) wrote:
wrote:
gardeningroger wrote:
hi im new to gardening and i have just started making a garden at the
back of my house. I bought some plants yesterday from a plant sale.
Some Geraniums i bought seemed to be potted in garden soil. I just
turned it out the plant as i was going to repot it when i look at the
plant in my hand, the soil is infested with these white maggots. At
least thats what i think they are. They all seem to be sleeping, are
they fly lavae or cud they be something that could be harmful to the
plants, what shud i do???


--
gardeningroger

could be vine weevil larvae. They eat roots (and the adults eat shoots
and leaves) and easily kill what they eat. Google them for pictures
e.g.

http://www.crocus.co.uk/pestscards/vineweevil/?

Check all those plants fro them; vine weevils can be a nuisance and
some people get plagued by them.


thanks for that link, Des. I have just read it, and am amazed to hear
that the vine weevils have found the dubious nirvana of feminism: they
reproduce without the need for make (I find that deeply creepy).
But anyhow. I get seriously scared when 1) I saw one of the adults on
my front step last week end and 2) a big belfast sink type trough I
keep flowering plants in all the time has recently seen all my primulae
kick the bucket. When I lifted them, the crowns appeared completely
severed from the roots - which appears to be the type of damage VW
grubs do.

Arrrgh; thats them. You will never guess what their favourite plants
to eat are?
You guessed it, Primulas (at least I think it's Primulas; and maybe
Fuschias; can't remember).
I have only seen them once; a whole wriggley mass of them in the roots
of a plant we bought in one local garden centre. Otherwise, we have
been lucky.
We have no primulas and only a few pots left.

As for the adults, unfortunately, there are several large grey weevils
that look like that and I do not know how to tell VW as distinct from
the others. There are somethig like 50000 species of weevil described
and you get something like 500 or more in the UK.

No idea about the nematodes though ..... they certainly occur naturally
in the soil in large numbers but you know know most of what I know
about them having read what I just wrote.

3) finally, do nematodes occur naturally in the soil? I
spotted some little grubs in post I was refilling which had a good
number of even smaller grubs apparently attached to them. One of those
I found had been sucked half dry by them.
4) Thank you Des. I am now going to be totally terrified of VW, the
existence of which and the damage from which were purely theoretical
for me up until now... Too much knowledge does sometimes be a
dangerous thing...

Cat(h)