Vine weevil: Susceptible Plants...?

I've heard some people say that vine weevils only do damage to plants in containers and are not a big problem for plants in the ground. In our garden when plants looked miserable and struggling, I used to think it was due to our rather sandy soil which doesn't hold any moisture or nutrients. Some may suffer for that reason but there were a few cases that when the plants was dug out or probe around their base we found vine weevils.

Recently we've been doing some re-design work in our back garden which resulted in us lifting and moving lots of plants. While doing this we've come across a lot of vine weevils. At first we didn't take much interest in it since we've always found a few around in the garden. After a day or two I began to pick the weevils out very consciously, and taking note of where they congregated. So I think if we know which plants are favoured by the weevils maybe we can keep an eye on them and offer them some preventative treatment before any damage done, as well as reducing the amount of weevils in general.

Here is the list of plants, in my garden at least, that weevils are attacking. I'd be interested in other people's experience of plants which are particularly susceptible to vine weevils.

• Phuopsis stylosa (hundreds of weevils around the roots but plant doesn't suffer at all)
• Primula (plants collapse or disappear)
• Sedum spectabile (roots get eaten so badly that the top comes off when given a gentle pull)
• Sempervivum (some variety only, same result as Sedum)
• Fuchsia, tender variety (my plants are a few years old but show signs of weakening and I found at least 10 emerging adults hiding inside the flowers)
• Begonia (weevils eat into corms and devour them)
• Impatiens (plants look unhappy then die)
• Astilbe (I have white, pink and maroon coloured ones, only the maroon coloured one suffers, starts with part of the clump not developing or dying. I've saved it twice from near death in the past 10 years)
• Chiastophyllum (like Sedum)
• Azalea (have seen weevils around the plant but haven't notice visible damage yet)
• Persicaria odorata (in the past 3 years only 1 plant was looking miserable with droopy leaves, upon taking the plant out found quite a few weevils in the root system)
• Mint

 

Golden yew , both in very large pots I lost them both to weevil (gutted not the word)

Japanese painted ferns in pots and the open ground

 

I know fuchsia and astilbe are susceptible.

I found an adult vine weevil next to my acer and two fuchsia saplings in containers last night. Squashed it but think I'll do a bit of preventative measures with a vine weevil larvae killer at the weekend.


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Luckily I don't really have a problem with the bu....s in this garden but in my last their absolute favourite was Phygelius Capensis. They decimated the clump but I decided to leave it because the weevils left all my other plants pretty much alone. That included perhaps about 50 Rhododendrons which are said to be a favourite. I figured 1 poor gobbled plant was better than many getting attacked.

 

I just picked some off of:

Cyclamen where they've done real visible damage to the flowers

Echinecea - busted eating the petals

Astilbe - these are looking very sorry for themselves and eaten. I did drench the soil about a month ago around these but clearly it barely made a dent.


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Does anyone know if Provado Bug Killer will kill vine weevil beetles? I know there is a drench too but I'm going to try nematodes for the grubs. I just want something to stop the adults. I've been very selective with my pesticide use, barely using it to date but I want to stop these weevils in their tracks fast.


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As far as I know, all vine weevil control chemicals and nematodes aim at killing the larvae before they reach adult stage. Since adult weevils tend to move about at night, unless there is a systemic pesticide, I doubt the normal contact-based spray will do much good anyway even if there is one available.

For me I'm using Bayer Provado Vine Weevil Killer 2 to water some susceptible plants twice a year, and I eliminate any adult ones whenever I see one. I would very much like to have a chemical treatment that can also be used on edibles though.

 

I've used Bayer Vine Weevil Killer 2 today (the one I bought recently is a year out of date but I figure a chemical doesn't really go out of date...) on the pot plants and will use the nematodes in the bed this week when they arrive. On the patrol this evening I couldn't see any Weevils but I think they wait until after 10pm...