A little over a year ago, our househelper brought some thebu one day. She made the leaves into a sambol and we planted the stalks. Thebu (Costus productus Costus speciosus) is an edible ginger plant that tastes faintly like ginger.
This morning, as I was trimming back the orchid tree, I noted that the thebu was badly infested with papaya mealybug and cotton mealybug. Ugh. All that white stuff on the undersides of the leaves? Papaya mealybug and cotton mealybug.
The papaya mealybug has been the bane of my existence since it appeared a year ago. It kills plants. The cotton mealybug isn’t quite so destructive.
I hacked off two stems, stripped the leaves, and washed the leaves thoroughly to remove all the papaya and cotton mealybugs and will make the leaves into thebu sambol later today. At least that’ll taste good. 🙂
I’ll have to similarly hack off the remaining thebu stems until the papaya and cotton mealybugs are all gone. And check the other plants while I’m at it. More pruning in my future? le sigh
Tags: papaya mealybug, cotton mealybug, infestation, thebu, Costus speciosus, sambol
We have this little red beetle that has totally disseminated (?) any lily of any kind in our yard. We had ten year old tiger ones that came with the house that don’t make it past the fresh stalk stage. This year they went after the stargazers. It seems some bugs are good at nothing but being a nuisance.
Hope all is well at your end of the world.
Moe