VINE WEEVIL

Moviemad

All I can say is another 3 years on from the start of this thread and I am still getting the little b-----s in pot after pot. Grr.

If I didn't sift the compost every year picking out the grubs (getting smaller amounts every year but still hundreds) and use Provoas I would be fighting a loosing battle with the blooming things.

I think caterpillars are going to be an issue this year, loads of moths about I fancy.

Happy gardening all.

You don't say where your vine weevils are located but I suspect that you have a greenhouse. If you do have a greenhouse then you will find in your pots and boxes little white grubs. These are the Vine Weevil grubs which live on the roots of your plants until they grow into the adult weevil. The adult weevil is not unpleasant looking and will eat the leaves of your plants. It has the disconcerting habit of falling off the leaf if you approach and then lying on the ground pretending to be dead.
It's rare to find an infestation of Vine Weevil in open ground as predators find them so if you do not have a greenhouse look in the soil in your containerised plants. I am not a fan of pesticides for the reasons that we all know so if I find Vine weevil grubs I sieve the soil and throw the grubs I find to the birds. You should be able to eliminate them without resorting to fancy pesticides which are more likely to kill you than the weevils.

I've found the grubs in some of my outdoor pots for the first time ever, this week. I was about to re-pot some herbs (tarragon, thyme and mint) into fresh compost and there they were, around the roots, when I tipped them out of their old pots!

Needless to say, I'll be following this thread with interest.

They particularly like fuchsias so every spring I empty the pots and check for the white grubs. I too have tried nematodes but found them expensive and ineffective.

Typo, it should have read 'so many' not so may ( I must start pre reading.)

Yes, our old vine which we grow against a wall had them last year, so may that we decided to cut the whole thing down to about 3 feet from the ground, there was too much to 'treat' with a product.Well, to our surprise, it grew back strongly almost to it's original proportions by the end of last Summer!

I have just repotted some plants, and found vine weevil grubs in a couple of pots, so I just spread the old compost out and let the birds do the rest. I do hope I have managed to save the plants that were in the infected pots, I washed the roots well, and made sure there were no grubs lurking.

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iLIke you, Spindrift I gave up trying to get rid of them a long while ago. If they are in the soil when I empty pots, I pick them out, and put them somewhere where the birds can get them easily - yes, I know, cruel, but very satisfying. They are becoming less and less, though, but I still have some troughs to sort out - and the birds are hovering. I too tried nematods, but found it a bit fussy and getting the mixture right was always doubtful.

I gave up a long time ago trying to find something to eradicate them, I just get rid if & when I find some, very satisfying squishing them lol but I seem to have less & less thank goodness

They are microscopic so you won't be able to see them, POGS. They work by entering the pest larvae and releasing toxins that kill them. They feed off the dead host and can then reproduce and move on to kill more larvae.

Vine weevil move very slowly and cannot fly so try to isolate any infected plants even if it means grubbing them up and getting rid of them.

Nellie

Thanks, never heard of that. Little buggers sums them up for sure.

Anno

I will try that too, thanks

I haven't got this problem but I did hear Gardeners' Question Time discussing it. They suggested turfing the whole lot out onto the lawn and letting the birds pick them off - they will die anyway (the weevils, not the birds) as they don't thrive on grass.

Revolting little buggers. They chomp ,their way through your plants roots and the tops fall off.

Are they in pots? I have resorted to emptying soil out of the pots into a big and mixing it with a solution of Amillatox (Armadillo Tox) in our house. Just Google the stuff. The site has instructions for its use with vine weevils.

It does stink a bit though, a Jeyes fluid sort of pong. It seems to have worked in my pots though.

merlot

Thank you kindly.

I have tried nematodes, sorry I forgot to mention. The thing is I found them very difficult to get to grips with. The product I had looked just like a grey mass of 'something' and I expected wiggly things. I found that in water it still looked like grey 'something' and therefore I never thought they had worked.

What did they looke like when you tried them, were they minute wiggly things?

You could try natural rather than pest control. There is a nematode treatment (Nemasys) which is applied with a watering can when they are at the larvae stage.