So last night I went on a couple of gardening forums and asked for help as I still had no idea what those pesky white bugs were and how much damage they were doing to my lemon balm plant.
I got my answer through the ever helpful
GardenWeb Forums and the culprit is...
Whiteflies!
Here is a better picture of them:
Whiteflies are tiny white insects (weirdly enough, they're not actually flies) that can cause serious damage by sucking juices from plants, causing them to lose leaves, wilt and eventually die. My lemon balm is looking very yellow and limp and there's no doubt in my mind that it's close to death. Even worse, whiteflies can transmit viruses from diseased to healthy plants. I think about my little plants growing happily in their pots and am quite alarmed.
Although these bugs are supposedly quite common, I've never seen them before and am not sure what to do at this point. An online search is just confusing me. All I want to do is to get rid of them without using chemicals and pesticides; however, in this case, I might just have to as whiteflies are very difficult to control.
I'll be going to my local nursery this weekend for some much needed advice... I really don't want to lose my beautiful, fragrant lemon balm plant.
Fingers crossed!
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