Please Help. Vine Weevil Infestation

MayLane

Is there any hope? I have a 18 month old garden which I have bought many trees and plants for. In the spring we repotted a dwarf apple and found weevil grubs so used nemotodes.

Over the last week I have noticed massive leaf damage in every bed of the garden. One evening I picked off over a hundred beetles from the dogwoods and firethorns alone.

I have bought 5 nematode traps and laid them tonight. I'm convinced this is the worst garden infestation ever. What else can I do? Do the nemotodes work? I'll use the watering can ones in autumn. What eats them? Will my garden die? 

MayLane

Just picked off at least 50 more. Is this bad?

MayLane

It's 11pm and my non gardening husband has gone out hunting.

MayLane

13!

wild edges

Any idea where they hatched from? It's been a bad year for them in my garden but I intercepted a lot at the grub stage. I probably fed over 100 grubs to the birds and have only seen a few adults now. I get a ton of birds in the garden though so if the adults venture from the safety of the greenhouse they hopefully get hoovered up pretty quickly.

You're doing the right thing though by the sounds of it and hopefully you can remove enough adults for your nematodes to make short work of any remaining grubs over the winter.

Big Bang Inflation

Here's an idea maybe ? To complement the nematode traps for the adults ?

Sacrificial potted plants. Buy some small cheap potted plants. Heuchera and Cyclamen maybe; plants the adults love but nothing expensive or fancy. Ensure the plants have no flowers and remove them if they do.

Buy some of the vine weevil killer drench and drench the potted plants - there is one you can still buy as I saw it last weekend at my local GC. If it's a systemic drench it should affect the adults when they nibble the leaves.

Put the potted plants out every evening after dusk in areas where you are having problems and take them in as early as you can after sun rise; when you get up. "In" may be your house, garage, outhouse or even outside in a tote container with very small ventilation holes in it (keep the container cool though). The idea is to minimise the time any other insects can have contact with your drenched plants.

Palustris

We have always had a lot of problems with the larval stage (my fault for liking Saxifrages and Auriculas) but I have never seen that many adults in the garden. Have you got a picture of the weevils you are collecting?

madpenguin

It does seem to be a lot of adult weevils you have there.I have a problem with vine weevils and very rarely see the adults and then only singly.
A photo would help with ID if you have one.

MayLane

Exactly the same as the pictures on line. I have a picture of the damage and will photo the weevil.

We have a lot of soil delivered as we have had to have raised beds and I order my plants from a popular online nursery. I suspected an issue when I lost all the sedum ice plants they delivered.

I'm really worried.

MayLane

MayLane