For the first time my Crocosmia was decimated by spider mites. I blame the hot dry weather for the explosion of mites as this is the first time they have been so abundant.
I removed the foliage and got rid of it.
My question is, do I have to get rid of the corms too?
I cannot find any information specific to perennials and I don’t want to encourage overwintering if removal would be best.
I don’t have an answer for you. However, we might have the same issue. Our Crocosmia leaves dried up this summer too. I thought that it was too hot for them. Now I am thinking that it might have been spider mites. We have noticed spider mites on a number of our plants. I am just going to removed the leaves of the infected plants and throw them in the garbage, but will leave the corms in place.
That’s what I finally chose to do too. The mites were only on the Lucifer, the Emily McKenzie are fine, so it was probably heat stress that invited the mites in. Hopefully next year it will be fine.
Just wondering if there’s an update on the crocosmia situation from last year?
Spider mites don’t like damp, so maybe try to wet down the plants in the evening. Maybe they will go away!
So far it seems that we don’t seem to have the spider mite problem that we had last year.