Plant Doctor Archive

Earwigs in dahlias

I ADORE dahlias but my plants are infested with earwigs, which I am much less fond of! Can you suggest an organic remedy for these bugs, as I would prefer not to spray my plants?

THERE'S nothing worse than picking a perfect bunch of dahlias from the summer garden, only to have a colony of earwigs crawl out when you get the flowers indoors. They are a common pest with dahlias, but you can easily trap them in tubes of rolled up newspaper placed in among the leaves. They will snuggle up in the sheltered environment and the next day you can simply scrunch up the paper and throw it away. Or you can shake the earwigs into a bucket of soapy water and let them drown.

Reproduced with permission from the former Weekend Gardener magazine. The views expressed here are not necessarily those of the RNZIH.