Passionvine Hoppers

Every year a problem in the gardens in the warmer climes of New Zealand: right down to Nelson/Marlborough. Late October/Early November the nymphs hatch from their eggs NOW’s the time!!

I call them fluffy bums – as their “nylon-filament tails” are prominent features. They suck sap from a wide variety of host plants, often climbers (Wisteria, Passionfruit vines) and Perennials (salvia, Hydrangeas, Camellia, you name it!). Sap-sucking is their big impact on garden plants – sometimes they debilitate their host, pooping honeydew all over the place and that creates a deposit of sooty mould, like with some many sap-sucking insects in the garden.

Slowly they grow larger and larger shedding skins along their journey (moulting), until they reach adulthood: Moth-like insects with delta-shaped wings, showing prominent vein-markings; they, too, suck plant sap. 

These insects have the ability to jump quickly and far and the adult passionvine hoppers also flick and fly very smartly, avoiding the insecticides you may want to spray at them!

In summer and autumn these adult passionvine hoppers lay their eggs in thin twiglets, often of their host plants: regularly-implanted tufts of woody plant materials give the game away! Very diagnostic.

Prune these twigs off in winter and burn them in the fire-place: saves you a lot of grief for next year

But there is some other trick you can play right now, to control the numbers of hoppers in your garden, this summer: The babies are just hatching now and climb to new growth in the top of their host plants; On still mornings (no wind) you can simply cull their numbers by using an aerosol spray can (that emits fine mist of insecticide) and spray the tiny nymphs in a misty cloud of spray… they can jump all they like, but won’t be able to avoid contact with that aerosol in the still of the morning; those new-borns are far more susceptible to insecticide sprays than in a week or so. Now’s the time!

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