☁️ Mealybug

How to identify

Look for white, cottony clusters tucked into leaf axils, stem joints, and fruit crevices — each bug is 2–4 mm, oval, and coated in waxy white fluff. Poke one and it oozes; the fluff is waterproof armor that shrugs off plain water.

Damage signs

Infested leaves yellow, curl, and drop; new growth comes out stunted and twisted. You'll also find sticky honeydew coating leaves, which grows black sooty mold — the plant ends up sunburned, starved, and filthy.

Plants it attacks

Citrus, tomatoes, peppers, houseplants, succulents, hibiscus, ornamentals

Non-chemical controls

• Blast clusters off with a sharp jet of water, then follow up by wiping survivors with a damp cloth — physical removal beats their waxy armor.
• Prune out heavily infested stems and toss them in the trash (not the compost), since mealybugs happily hitchhike on prunings.
• Release Cryptolaemus montrouzieri, the 'mealybug destroyer' ladybug — its larvae look like giant mealybugs, which is either camouflage or comedy.
• Stop the ant partnership: ants farm mealybugs for honeydew and fight off their predators, so wrap stems with sticky bands to cut the ant highway.
• Quarantine every new plant for two weeks before it joins the garden — mealybugs are the classic nursery stowaway.
• Space plants for airflow and avoid over-fertilizing with nitrogen, which grows the soft, sappy tissue mealybugs love best.