In the Garden with Pat Rubin

Bee garden writer Pat Rubin writes about everything that grows, from flowers and trees to vegetables and lawns. Pat volunteered for several years as a Placer County Master Gardener and has written about gardening for many national and regional publications. In addition to gardening, she spends time raising and showing miniature horses and miniature donkeys.

In the Garden will include news, events, advice and other gardening tidbits. Pat will also answer reader questions.

• Ask a question

« Drat those gnats | In the Garden front page | It's not too late to start a vegetable garden »

April 28, 2008

Spittlebug season

It’s spittlebug season.

You’ve seen them. They look like masses of foamy spit against the stems of plants. In my garden, they seem to love the yarrow, the asters, the mint and the roses. Whenever I see them, I wash them away, and after a few days, that seems to discourage them enough that they don’t come back. Look when you wash the spittle away, and you'll see a soft looking, little greenish-brown insect, only about ¼ inch long, hiding inside. That’s the spittlebug nymph, and, like the spittlebug adult, it sucks plant sap. A large infestation can weaken plants.

According to “Insect, Disease & Weed I.D. Guide” by Jill Cebenko and Deborah Martin, (Rodale Press, 2001, 308 pages), they’re also called froghoppers. Adults are brown or green, oval shaped, with a blunt frog-like head. Nymphs are wingless. They feed inside the frothy bubbles for as long as seven weeks, then molt to the adult stage. The adults lay their eggs in August and September, and the eggs overwinter until the following spring when the cycle starts again.

Cleaning up debris each fall - cutting away the herbaceous plants, cleaning up old mulch, raking leaves, and hauling away or composting the remains - will help cut down the number of overwintering spittlebugs.

Ask a question

Please use the form below to submit your question. Because there is a 100-word limit for questions, a word counter is located directly beneath the box where you enter the your question.