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Earwig killer please

Sue Pertwee-Tyr

Sue Pertwee-Tyr

Accuphase all the way down
My dahlias are about to start flowering. Last year, they were devastated by earwigs and I got hardly any flowers because the top growth was defoliated faster than I could keep up with. The signs are already there that it's happening again. So I'm reluctantly thinking I'll have to spray this year, but most of the insecticide sprayers I've seen don't mention earwigs. Is that because they're not easy to kill or disrupt?
 
Be very wary about using any insecticide at present, countless species are currently in what looks like terminal decline. Many of them pollinators, i.e. huge knock-on effects.
 
Thanks @Vinny and @Tony L . And yes, I'm pretty sure it's earwigs. Dahlias are prone to attack by earwigs, I'm informed, and I can see the little buggers on my plants. They don't seem to attack much else in the borders. I'd be using any insecticide very locally and selectively.
 
Aquire some small flowerpots, stuff them full of straw or dry grass, then suspend them from bits of bamboo (other sticks are available) around your dahlias. The earwigs will shelter inside, & you can then move them to a more welcoming location. I saw this in a film, but in that they were drowned in a bucket, so don't do that.
 
Suffolk Tony said:
Aquire some small flowerpots, stuff them full of straw or dry grass, then suspend them from bits of bamboo (other sticks are available) around your dahlias. The earwigs will shelter inside, & you can then move them to a more welcoming location. I saw this in a film, but in that they were drowned in a bucket, so don't do that.
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Been there, tried that (not the bucket bit). The 'more welcoming location' seemed to be a mere jumping-off point for getting right back to dahlia-munching.
 
Tony L said:
Be very wary about using any insecticide at present, countless species are currently in what looks like terminal decline. Many of them pollinators, i.e. huge knock-on effects.
Click to expand...

Maybe 6 months ago, there was a talk with someone from Buglife, about insect counts in the UK.
The baseline was set over a couple of years that I can't remember and the interviewee was perfectly open about the fact that the years chosen happened to have had abnormally high insect population estimates due to a short series of months, well over a year in total, with weather highly favourable to insects.
 
cutting42 said:
That is a great story, I love it.
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Grace Hopper caught the first bug in the Harvard Mark II computer. She actually taped the moth into her log book.

There is some argument who first coined the term but this was the first actual bug found that caused a computer to malfunction. The term has been used since when your code doesn't work as it should "I have a bug" was a common saying when I produced computer code.

DV
 
Hostilities not yet commenced. I’ve bought some insecticide spray, but avoided using it so far. I’d prefer not to have to.
 
Just be glad you’re not living in a desert like London. I was overrun by earwigs but the scorpions ate them. Now it’s scorpion eating snakes. Waiting for a plague of mongeese.
 
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