The weather this year has been problematic, last week we had temps upper 70's - mid 80s now we just dropped into the low 70's with night time temps in the upper 50's - low 60's. Yesterday I went out and found that more than half of my plants were covered in aphids and mites, I even had them on the mature arabicum leaves, which I've never had before. I spent over 3 hours spraying and picking off aphids yesterday and today some have more aphids on them then yesterday 🤬 I used soap water on them yesterday, I'm out of neem oil, I'm going for some in the morning, but the damage is pretty extensive.
Two days ago, I noticed the leaves on my favorite arabicum were getting a little pale, it was covered in hundreds of tiny red mites I needed a magnifying glass to see. So it got it's first ever leaf clipping and I sprayed it with soap water and then rinsed it off. You can see some of the damaged leaves on the plants behind it.
This one had it's first ever flower open yesterday, it looked fine, didn't have aphids, and then today I see this.
To be fair, the lower leaves on this one started to discolor several days back, I have sprayed it with soap a couple of times but hadn't seen mites or aphids, until yesterday when it was covered in aphids.
The new growth leaves on the top third of the plant were fine until yesterday.
I gave these arabicums a haircut about 3 weeks ago because they were stresses from some fungus issues earlier in the season. It got down in the 50's with night time temps dipping into the low 40's and upper 30's. I had them in my little greenhouse when it got under 50 but the plants were cold and damp for a long time and they got leaf spot. They were all recovering fine until the one in front was covered with aphids yesterday.
You can see the black dead aphid I didn't clear off the plant yesterday, the live ones were new today.
These leaves were fine 3 days ago.
I'm needing some help/advice/guidance on this. First, is this all insect damage? Second, should I skip the neem oil and go with an insecticide? Third, should I remove all effected leaves? Just the discolored ones and not the wrinkled ones? None of them?
I'm at a loss here, but around 50 of my 80 plants are already infested and I expect it will be more tomorrow 😒
On the up side, it's going to be sunny and in the low 80's with night time temps in the upper 60's for the next week, that should take care of the bulk of the aphids.
