When I got home today, I saw that 2 of the new shoots out of twelve of my jasmine looked like they'd been cut off near the soil. When I looked closer, I saw a little bug - i crushed it so quickly i dont remember much about it, other than it was small and a rusty colour. is this a red spider mite? i saw some bug killer at the store that said it would get rid of all types of mites, is it worth me doing this? if there was one, is there likely to be loads more? i have looked, both on the surface and on the plant and not seen anything.

if anyone can help, let me know

thanks all!

danny22 wrote:
When I got home today, I saw that 2 of the new shoots out of twelve of
my jasmine looked like they'd been cut off near the soil. When I
looked closer, I saw a little bug - i crushed it so quickly i dont
remember much about it, other than it was small and a rusty colour. is
this a red spider mite? i saw some bug killer at the store that said it
would get rid of all types of mites, is it worth me doing this? if
there was one, is there likely to be loads more? i have looked, both
on the surface and on the plant and not seen anything.

if anyone can help, let me know

thanks all!

red spider mite are seriously small - barely visible - and come in large
numbers so probably not the bug that you squashed.


--
CTC Right to Ride Rep. for Richmond upon Thames

have done some reading, lots of places say red spider mites are too small to be seen, and this was about a millimeter long, and have since seen another. could it be something called fungus gnat i have read about? i have seen a couple of flies around the room, could these be from the same source?

the soil in the pot is still damp. it has been for a while since i was told to water it well by someone apparently more ill-informed than i am, and as a result i think some of the roots might be starting to rot. obviously, first thing i wanna do is not water the plants, and let the soil dry out. would it be worth putting the pots near, but not too near, to a radiator? im worried these sick little things are going to damage the only-just regrowing plants!!!

danny22 writes

When I got home today, I saw that 2 of the new shoots out of twelve of
my jasmine looked like they'd been cut off near the soil.

Sounds like slug or snail damage.

When I
looked closer, I saw a little bug - i crushed it so quickly i dont
remember much about it, other than it was small and a rusty colour. is
this a red spider mite?

No, as someone else has said. And red spider do not bite shoots off.
They are sap suckers.

Your bug may well have been a beetle which feeds upon plant eating bugs
- its worth not rushing to kill something until you are sure what it is
and what it is doing.

i saw some bug killer at the store that said it
would get rid of all types of mites, is it worth me doing this? if
there was one, is there likely to be loads more? i have looked, both
on the surface and on the plant and not seen anything.

if anyone can help, let me know

thanks all!





--
Kay

In article ,
says...

have done some reading, lots of places say red spider mites are too
small to be seen, and this was about a millimeter long, and have since
seen another. could it be something called fungus gnat i have read
about? i have seen a couple of flies around the room, could these be
from the same source?

the soil in the pot is still damp. it has been for a while since i was
told to water it well by someone apparently more ill-informed than i am,
and as a result i think some of the roots might be starting to rot.
obviously, first thing i wanna do is not water the plants, and let the
soil dry out. would it be worth putting the pots near, but not too
near, to a radiator? im worried these sick little things are going to
damage the only-just regrowing plants!!!





Keep the jasmine as far from the radiator as you can get it, not many
plants thrive in the dry air of a centrally heated house so it will be
worth standing it on a pebble tray and keep some water in that to make
the air around the plant more humid (do not let the pot sit in the water)
We still do not know what sort of jasmine it is, I ask because there are
quite a few jasmines and many more plants which get called jasmine but
are in fact not! it makes a huge difference to the advice.
--
Charlie Pridham, Gardening in Cornwall
www.roselandhouse.co.uk
Holders of national collections of Clematis viticella cultivars and
Lapageria rosea

its jasmine polyanthum. my concern, anne, was to dry the compost, not boil the roots as you so sarcastically said. some of us are still learning.

either way, the plants are out of direct sunlight and ill let the compost dry off before watering again. some people suggest putting potatoe lumps on the soil for a few hours to draw any larvae of the soil to identify if it is fungus gnat. anyone had experience of doing this? and if so did it work?

On 17/2/08 18:13, in article , "Anne
Jackson" wrote:

The message from danny22 contains
these words:


its jasmine polyanthum. my concern, anne, was to dry the compost,
not boil the roots as you so sarcastically said. some of us are
still learning.

It matters not a whit what your intentions were, the result would
be the same!

What amazes me is the fact that some people don't bother to find
out what a plant's requirements are, _before_ problems arise!

I'm afraid one of the problems - especially for beginners - is that they see
a lovely plant, want to own it but all too often, can't find a member of
staff to tell them how to look after it. Too many garden centres are just
plant supermarkets and you probably wouldn't ask the girl at the Tesco
checkout how to cook your monkfish - or not with any expectation of expert
help!



--
Sacha
http://www.hillhousenursery.co.uk
South Devon
'We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our
children.'

i bought the jasmine because they were in such poor condition they were about to be thrown out by the people selling them. when i got home, i researched the plant online, and asked the best way to care for it on here. it said it liked warm environments and indirect light. i didnt know a few feet from a radiator would be too warm, like i said, just a beginner. but sometimes, like sasha kindly said, it isnt possible to glean information about the said plant before it is bought, and searching for help afterwards seems the best way to go.

we all have to start somewhere

In article ,
says...

its jasmine polyanthum. my concern, anne, was to dry the compost, not
boil the roots as you so sarcastically said. some of us are still
learning.

either way, the plants are out of direct sunlight and ill let the
compost dry off before watering again. some people suggest putting
potatoe lumps on the soil for a few hours to draw any larvae of the
soil to identify if it is fungus gnat. anyone had experience of doing
this? and if so did it work?





OK, Jasmine polyanthum is all but indistructable, neither red spider nor
fungus knats are eating the stems, if that was a clean cut then it was
probably a slug if it was discoloured near the break probably fungal,
keep the plant cool and light, give water when dry but do not leave stood
in water and keep your fingers crossed that the roots have not been
damaged by the waterlogging
--
Charlie Pridham, Gardening in Cornwall
www.roselandhouse.co.uk
Holders of national collections of Clematis viticella cultivars and
Lapageria rosea

On 18/2/08 03:21, in article , "Anne
Jackson" wrote:

The message from Sacha contains these words:
On 17/2/08 18:13, "Anne Jackson" wrote:
The message from danny22 contains
these words:

its jasmine polyanthum. my concern, anne, was to dry the compost,
not boil the roots as you so sarcastically said. some of us are
still learning.

It matters not a whit what your intentions were, the result would
be the same!

What amazes me is the fact that some people don't bother to find
out what a plant's requirements are, _before_ problems arise!

I'm afraid one of the problems - especially for beginners - is that
they see a lovely plant, want to own it but all too often, can't find
a member of staff to tell them how to look after it. Too many garden
centres are just plant supermarkets and you probably wouldn't ask the
girl at the Tesco checkout how to cook your monkfish - or not with any
expectation of expert help!

That is true, but with access to the Internet, all the necessary advice
on the care of house plants is there at your fingertips, as it were...

Indeed and the same could be said for gardening, in which case urg becomes
redundant. But actually 'talking' to people with experience is so valuable,
IMO. Some of the advice is conflicting on the internet and on here and
reading the internet alone, you have no idea how much is simply gleaned from
others and stuck onto a site. Here, you might get conflicting advice but at
least you know it's real experiences and can sift through it to make your
own mind up. The people I feel sorriest for on urg are those who come here
expecting failsafe answers to every garden query, as if gardening were an
exact science! There are so many variables at work in gardening - not least
the gardener! - that it makes it all the more fascinating.

--
Sacha
http://www.hillhousenursery.co.uk
South Devon
'We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our
children.'

On Feb 18, 3:21*am, Anne Jackson wrote:
The message from Sacha contains these words:





On 17/2/08 18:13, "Anne Jackson" wrote:
The message from danny22 contains
these words:

its jasmine polyanthum. *my concern, anne, was to dry the compost,
not boil the roots as you so sarcastically said. *some of us are
still learning.

It matters not a whit what your intentions were, the result would
be the same!

What amazes me is the fact that some people don't bother to find
out what a plant's requirements are, _before_ problems arise!
I'm afraid one of the problems - especially for beginners - is that
they see a lovely plant, want to own it but all too often, can't find
a member of staff to tell them how to look after it. *Too many garden
centres are just plant supermarkets and you probably wouldn't ask the
girl at the Tesco checkout how to cook your monkfish - or not with any
expectation of expert help!

That is true, but with access to the Internet, all the necessary advice
on the care of house plants is there at your fingertips, as it were...


Well, this guy tried to do just that - ask a question on an internet
forum and obtain advice - and got his nose cut off...

Many people buy a plant, or are presented with a plant, and rely on
the advice on the label, and why wouldn't they?
Trouble is, I have often seen very different house plants in stores
(not necessarily garden centres, who seem a little better) bearing
exactly the same label with the same generic advice.

Some of us are still feeling our way around gardening, you know ;-)

Cat(h)

Anne Jackson wrote:

Why is it considered easier to ask in a forum that to use a search
engine to find the answer oneself, though? Laziness?


Google search (pages in English only):
"Red spider mite" "jasmine" - 692 hits
"bug" "jasmine" - 297000 hits

Why didn't you try that to find out how many hits there were? Laziness?

Sometimes it's not that easy to limit searches to something which won't give
a shedload of hits - you have to know the right question to ask. Asking athe
same question in a forum will soon pare down the answers to a usable level.

--
Jeff
(cut "thetape" to reply)

the point, i think, is that asking for help in these forums offers advice from people who may have had experience of certain problems before, while the internet is usually a tangled mess of twenty thousand answers to a single question.

its nice to interact with people and share experiences and learn from them on a common ground. otherwise whats the point in these forums? might as well just not have them and use search engines instead

Anne Jackson wrote:

Google search (pages in English only):
"Red spider mite" "jasmine" - 692 hits
"bug" "jasmine" - 297000 hits

Whereas "jasmine polyanthum + red spider mite" gives only 87.


And "jasmine polyanthum" "bug" gives 187 hits
But "jasminum polyanthum" "bug" gives 393 hits

So you still need to pose the correct question. The point is that no matter
if it's 87 or umpteen thousand hits, the OP got a sensible answer from this
group in a dozen replies. He could still be working his way through Google,
and never come up with the right answer because to most people "bug" and
"slug" are not the same thing, and a search on "bug" would not find "slug" -
the probable cause of the OP's problem.

It's never a bad idea to do a Google search first...

We are agreed on that.

--
Jeff
(cut "thetape" to reply)

On Feb 18, 7:20*pm, Anne Jackson wrote:
The message from "Cat(h)" contains these words:

What amazes me is the fact that some people don't bother to find
out what a plant's requirements are, _before_ problems arise!

I'm afraid one of the problems - especially for beginners - is that
they see a lovely plant, want to own it but all too often, can't find
a member of staff to tell them how to look after it. *Too many garden
centres are just plant supermarkets and you probably wouldn't ask the
girl at the Tesco checkout how to cook your monkfish - or not with any
expectation of expert help!

That is true, but with access to the Internet, all the necessary advice
on the care of house plants is there at your fingertips, as it were...

Well, this guy tried to do just that - ask a question on an internet
forum and obtain advice - and got his nose cut off...

Why is it considered easier to ask in a forum that to use a search engine
to find the answer oneself, though? *Laziness?


Judging from the rows I have seen develop in this forum over good/bad
advice given, I would have thought that the very purpose of this type
of forum was to exchange ideas, experience and provide advice. I have
often asked pretty silly questions here, and been very glad of the
sometimes basic, but to me useful answers I have got.
There is a big difference between being too lazy to google, and simply
not knowing enough to google intelligently. Not to mention the need
to know enough to separate the wheat from the chaff in an internet
search.
I have often googled *after* enquiring here.

Many people buy a plant, or are presented with a plant, and rely on
the advice on the label, and why wouldn't they?
Trouble is, I have often seen very different house plants in stores
(not necessarily garden centres, who seem a little better) bearing
exactly the same label with the same generic advice.

My 'generic' advice would be to let the compost dry out, before giving
the plant any more water. *More houseplants are killed by over-watering
than by any other method...

Some of us are still feeling our way around gardening, you know ;-)

Whilst conditions for garden plants can vary widely, depending on a
on a variety of circumstances, soil conditions, temperature, etc. the
same is not necessarily true of houseplants. * *

Not true. An overly sunny windowsill will bake a plant which would
thrive on a shadier and more humid bathroom sill. I used to have lots
of houseplants, once, and have experienced the differences location
can make by trial and error, involving much killing of lots of
different plants (due to a variety of problems, not all identified).

Anyway, surely, it is no harm to treat the innocent poster with a
little kindness? A good dead rarely goes unpunished ;-)

Cat(h)