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Earwigs giving my plants problems!

Posted: Fri Jun 11, 2010 3:32 am
by Matt
There are a ton of earwigs that have decided to take up residence in the corrugated polycarbonate panels of my newest greenhouse. I sometimes catch them and feed them to my plants, but they often find their way into the traps themselves. However, I've noticed that they're able to chew their way out of traps! Check this out on one of my larger 1955 clones:
Image

They're also quite "slippery" and quick to find any daylight on the edges of traps. This guy almost got away, but not quite:
Image

Re: Earwigs giving my plants problems!

Posted: Fri Jun 11, 2010 3:57 am
by Steve_D
Interesting. It seems we all have little hazards and nuisances to deal with, although they vary from place to place and person to person. It's nice that the Venus Flytraps get the upper hand every so often though.

My own latest annoyance is some bird (I haven't seen him yet) that has been landing on the Flytrap trays in the backyard the last several afternoons and pecking the moist medium, I guess looking for bugs, and uprooting quite a few small Flytraps in the process (which I meticulously replant). Grr--

Nice photos, and great color on the B52s!

Re: Earwigs giving my plants problems!

Posted: Fri Jun 11, 2010 4:07 am
by watnazn
Yeah, for me, squirrels destroyed my pot of sensitive plants and they were just starting to get big. I hate squirrels.

Re: Earwigs giving my plants problems!

Posted: Fri Jun 11, 2010 4:27 am
by kevinqwe
wow your plants look great tho!

Re: Earwigs giving my plants problems!

Posted: Fri Jun 11, 2010 8:10 pm
by alabama
i know something that might work, my dad uses them to grow something diffrent.
there pest strips you can get them at lowes 1-2 should take care of the problem but idk if it would harm the plants it dont harm my dads plants so im guessing it wouldnt harm venus fly traps but their sensitive plants.

Re: Earwigs giving my plants problems!

Posted: Fri Jun 11, 2010 8:24 pm
by Matt
Steve_D wrote:Interesting. It seems we all have little hazards and nuisances to deal with, although they vary from place to place and person to person. It's nice that the Venus Flytraps get the upper hand every so often though.
Yeah, I think that the Venus fly traps often win the battle with the earwigs. When I feed them to my plants, they almost never seem to chew their way out.
Steve_D wrote:My own latest annoyance is some bird (I haven't seen him yet) that has been landing on the Flytrap trays in the backyard the last several afternoons and pecking the moist medium, I guess looking for bugs, and uprooting quite a few small Flytraps in the process (which I meticulously replant). Grr--
Oh man, that's really annoying. Thankfully I haven't had any birds mess with my plants on the patio yet, but I imagine that day will come sometime.
Steve_D wrote:Nice photos, and great color on the B52s!
Thanks! Those plants are actually Bob Ziemer's 1955 clone. It's a really nice "typical" Venus fly trap that colors up well and gets fairly large traps.
watnazn wrote:Yeah, for me, squirrels destroyed my pot of sensitive plants and they were just starting to get big. I hate squirrels.
Yep, squirrels are probably the worst pests I've had to deal with. In Boulder they were relentless. I had to build a cage to keep them and the birds from eating my flytraps. They would mess with them almost every day.
kevinqwe wrote:wow your plants look great tho!
Thanks Kevin!
alabama wrote:there pest strips you can get them at lowes 1-2 should take care of the problem but idk if it would harm the plants it dont harm my dads plants so im guessing it wouldnt harm venus fly traps but their sensitive plants.
That could work well to trap them. I'm not really that concerned with them at this point, but if they start chewing holes in a lot more traps, I might have to take some sort of action.

Re: Earwigs giving my plants problems!

Posted: Sun Jun 13, 2010 5:27 pm
by Fuzzy_Puppies
The best way to get rid of earwigs, is to locate there home and food source and eliminate it. They tend to live in mulch and other dead plant material. I rented a house once that was infested with the nasty little critters; they were all over in the yard and in the windowsills. I raked up all the leaves in the yard, pruned all the trees and bushes so there wasn't any branches on the lowest 12 inches of the trunk. Then removed all the mulch and sprayed the yard with some Ortho bug b gone....For the couple of years after that I lived there, I didn't see anymore.

Re: Earwigs giving my plants problems!

Posted: Sun Jun 13, 2010 5:30 pm
by Matt
I don't actually mind having the earwigs around because the flytraps catch quite a few of them. I certainly don't want to eradicate them, but I'd rather not see them in my house either. For now they mostly live in my greenhouse and I'm actually happy about that because they're a source of food for the plants. It's just a bit disappointing when they chew through traps, but it doesn't happen often enough to make me want to get rid of them.

Re: Earwigs giving my plants problems!

Posted: Sun Jun 13, 2010 5:38 pm
by Hayden
Im having to repot one of mine as some wierd larvae have decided to stay in there. I think I bought it with them in, hopefully it wont spread!

Re: Earwigs giving my plants problems!

Posted: Wed Jun 16, 2010 12:59 am
by theflytrapboy
i have never had that problem before. the earwigs and ligthning bugs AND those awful japanese beetles that wreak havoc on my strawberrys all make excellent food for my flytraps. and for my sarrs i often find wasps in the traps. often still alive. as soon as i find my cam charger i will post a pic of one in a pitcher.

Re: Earwigs giving my plants problems!

Posted: Tue Oct 01, 2019 7:13 pm
by yaboyguzmas
I know right the squirrels keep on messing



Up my sphagnum moss

Re: Earwigs giving my plants problems!

Posted: Sat Oct 05, 2019 1:05 pm
by tommyr
You can make an earwig trap. Get a smallish shallow container and mix equal parts soy sauce and olive oil and put near the plants. They'll go in and drown. Got this tip from another forum somewhere. There was a photo with dead earwigs in the trap.

Re: Earwigs giving my plants problems!

Posted: Wed Oct 09, 2019 8:58 pm
by Artchic528
yaboyguzmas wrote:I know right the squirrels keep on messing



Up my sphagnum moss
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