Boxwood Leaf Miner

Are you worried about your boxwoods because there appears to be something mining the inside of the leaves? What you see are most likely boxwood leafminers, which can be a major pest of boxwoods.  Leafminers don’t have picks and shovels to mine the leaves of boxwoods, but they do eat away the inside of the leaves.

This pest is a small fly that was imported into this country many years ago.  The adult is a orange-yellow mosquito-like fly.  They swarm about boxwoods in mid to late April for about two weeks where they mate and lay their eggs into leaves.

The yellow maggots or larvae hatch feed inside the leaves.  They cause blisterlike blotch mines that appear on the bottom side of infested leaves.  Heavily mined leaves turn yellow and prematurely drop.  During the spring and summer, look at the underside of the previous year’s leaves to easily detect an infestation.  Mines of the current season do not become obvious until fall.  Most damage is done in the fall and late winter which is what we are seeing now.

If you think that you might have adult flies hovering over your boxwoods, contact us today as Virginia Green uses a systemic injection to control the larvae from within the plant. If you would like a free estimate for protection of your trees and shrubs, call our office at 804-285-6200.