For those who enjoy the process of gardening and have a special love for this hobby must know how difficult and close planting a plant or tree must be. For the tree or plant that has been planted with love to have something that is killing it silently and slowly, it’s hard for loving gardeners to leave it as it is. The best and quickest way to solve this problem is to find a way to eliminate these virus from eating our beloved plants.
Whiteflies can be a great danger for a ficus tree as they can form damages to the tree. In general, the ficus whiteflies are tiny and moth-like insects for which the scientific name is Singhiella simplex. Yellow tree leaves and leaves falling off from the tree are signs that your ficus tree is being infested by the whiteflies. Check the underneath of your ficus tree leaves to see the whiteflies if you notice these signs. Immediate action can be done to prevent even the worse infestation from the whiteflies from happening, so here are the steps on how to eliminate the ficus whiteflies to save your tree.
You will need:
- Silver Paint
- Hand-Held Vacuum
- Lawn Bag
- Garden Sprayer
- Insecticidal Spray
- First, turn over the leaves of your ficus tree to remove any leaves that have a sac of white eggs underneath. These sacs of white eggs have to be destroyed as allowing these eggs to hatch will result in more whiteflies and more damages to your ficus tree.
- Before throwing them out with the thrash, insert the leaves in a garbage bag. If you are not sure whether your ficus tree is infested by the whiteflies, buy an insect tape and hang it around the ficus tree. Any present whiteflies will get stuck on the tape, so it will be easier for you to identify the problem.
- Early in the morning, use the hand-held vacuum cleaner to remove all of the adult whiteflies. Placing the vacuum cleaner bag in the freezer for 24 hours before disposing it will help to prevent from any living whiteflies as recommended by the University of California.
- Fill the insecticidal soap inside a garden sprayer. Use the sprayer to spray the ficus tree by concentrating on the underside of the leaves. This step will help to destroy any whiteflies that you might have missed during the previous step. The University of Florida recommends this step to be repeated once each week until all the whiteflies are dead completely.
- Avoid using any chemical insecticides, as this type of product will kill all the natural predators of whiteflies such as lacewings, parasitic wasps, lady beetles and minute pirate bugs.
- Place mulch around your ficus tree and paint it with a silver spray paint. This will prevent the whiteflies from making the ficus tree as their house.