Larvae: Boxwood leafminer larvae (called a maggot) exist for about 8 to 9 months.The ovipositor is strong enough to break through the leaf tissue to insert the eggs. Eggs: The eggs are deposited into the boxwood leaf using needle-like ovipositors on the female flies.They breed, and then the females lay 20-30 eggs in new leaves. Adult: Adult leafminers emerge from their pupal cases, often found protruding from the undersides of boxwood leaves in the spring (see photo below).Like other flies, the boxwood leafminer passes through four life stages: Let’s start the description of their lifecycle in the spring, when the adults are active. The lifecycle of this Insect is really interesting (you can hear my enthusiasm for them in the video embedded below). The tiny orange larvae of the boxwood leafminer are spotted inside the leaves. If you suspect an infestation, peel open a leaf in the early spring and you’ll see the maggots inside (see photo below). Sometimes these larval miners live by themselves in a leaf, but there can be up to 8 maggots sharing a single leaf. The larvae are miniscule (3 mm) yellow to orange maggots that spend their whole larval life-stage inside of a single leaf. They are a type of gall midge.īoxwood leafminer larvae, on the other hand, are seldom seen by gardeners – unless you know what to look for and are willing to peel apart a leaf. If you’re a bug nerd like I am, boxwood leafminers are in the family Cecidomyiidae. In mid-spring, the adults create a cloud of tiny flies around the plant as they emerge, breed, and lay eggs. Though their time as adults is short-lived, they make their presence known. You’ll only see the adults for a period of about two weeks. During their brief time as adults, they breed and lay eggs and do little else. Instead, each adult boxwood leafminer fly lives for only about a day. They look a lot like tiny orange mosquitoes, though they do not bite animals or feed on blood. Description of boxwood leafminerĪdult boxwood leafminers are small orange flies in the order Diptera (which means they have two wings). Individual brown leaves with a blistered surface are a sure sign of the boxwood leafminer. If you see either of these symptoms on your boxwoods, it’s time to take a closer look to confirm the presence of this pest using the info found in the following sections. Later in the growing season, damaged leaves turn brown on the top and bottom, and may even drop from the plant in large quantities.Active infestations appear as puffy blisters with an orange-ish tint on the bottoms of the leaves and pale light green or yellow speckles on the upper leaf surface.This results in several distinct symptoms. Like other species of leafminers, the boxwood leafminer ( Monarthropalpus flavus) feeds by “mining” out the juicy green tissue in between the upper and lower surface of the leaves of boxwood plants.
If you have brown boxwood leaves but aren’t sure what’s to blame, keep reading! What does leafminer damage look like on boxwoods? In this article, I’ll share more about this pest and offer tips for controlling it without synthetic chemical pesticides. The boxwood leafminer was introduced to the North American continent from Europe in the early 1900s and is now found in nearly every region of the United States and southern Canada. If you have brown, blistered leaves on your boxwoods, this little critter could be to blame. The boxwood leafminer is a common pest of boxwood shrubs ( Buxus spp.).
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