Is your angel's trumpet getting more and more holes in the leaves? There can be different reasons. If you get to the bottom of the matter and take appropriate measures, you can save your beautiful ornamental plant from worse.
Caterpillars eat the angel's trumpet despite its toxicity
Holey leaves - what can be behind it
If an angel's trumpet shows holes in the leaves, that's an ugly thing, but usually not a really threatening problem. As a rule, there are pests behind it, which can be successfully combated with the right measures. However, you should also do this, because in the long run the infestation naturally affects the plant and can also lead to the failure to flower.
The most common parasites that like to feast on the large, tender leaves of the angel's trumpet and leave hole-shaped feeding marks are:
- leaf bugs
- caterpillars
- catchy tunes
- snails
detection and countermeasures
leaf bugs
Leaf bugs leave medium-sized holes in angel's trumpet leaves. You should first fight them "humanely" and chemical-free by manual removal in several stages. Shake the angel's trumpet in the morning when the hard-to-see bugs are still stiff and collect them from the ground. Repeat this until the scars are reduced. Otherwise, you can also spray the plant with neem oil, which is harmless to bedbugs and angel trumpets, or, a little more harshly, with soapy water.
caterpillars
When caterpillars are at work, you can tell by the very large and rapidly expanding holes - after all, caterpillars never have enough. You should therefore take countermeasures immediately - preferably simply by searching the plant thoroughly and collecting the caterpillars. This is usually sufficient and is preferable to chemical treatment in any case.
catchy tunes
Earwigs are actually more beneficial than pests, as they also like mites or aphids in addition to a few bites of tender angel's trumpet leaves. It is therefore better to make friends with them and offer them an alternative instead of the angel's trumpet: Clay flower pots filled with wood shavings, which are placed upside down in the bed or hung in a tree, have proven to be a good idea. The earwigs usually settle there immediately, all by themselves.
snails
You can clearly recognize snail damage by large holes with snail slime. Snail infestation is quite critical for the angel's trumpet. Either chase the snails in the evening hours and place the plant in a clay pot on a dry patio.