I planted mystic spires salvia last year. It came back fine this year as far as the plant growth, but blooming has been a problem. Hopefully you can see in the photos that the buds come out fine, but they do not really bloom and then just dry up abruptly. There might be an occasional petal or two of purple before drying up but no real blooming. This has been the case on four separate plants. They are all in the ground. I do have a different variety of mystic spires in a pot that seems to be suffering the same fate. It has been hot here, but not uncharacteristically so. This problem has existed from the first buds of the year. Plants all bloomed fine last year after being planted late in the summer. Where they are, they get direct sun roughly from 12-6pm.

I appreciate any help.

If you look closely you'll see that it's infested with numerous small caterpillars. Not sure what they are other than larvae of a moth that lay eggs in immature buds. The larvae eat the insides of the buds, destroying or disfiguring the flowers, and crawl out through a tiny hole and at some point create that sort of webbing that is visible in your photos. I've probably got the mechanics all mixed up but I get them on salvia sometimes. Remove and destroy all infested flowers, watch buds and squish all that you can see. If an individual bud has a tiny hole, a caterpillar should be present. You could try an insecticidal soap, but not in the heat of the day.

Maybe someone else can actually identify this particular pest!

Thank you very much for your help

You're welcome. I had them on S. darcyii last year, big disappointment! Keeping watch for them this year so they don't get out of hand if they reappear . The caterpillars are REALLY tiny. Gotta look closely! Good luck

I'd like to post an update of my experience simply so others may be able to stumble across it in the future. In my pest journey, I found many people with the same problem, but I never came across a certain solution. While I don't have one either, I think documenting my experience could be helpful.

When I first posted the bloom problem here, I was fortunate to get a reply from NMoasis that I had a caterpillar problem. While I did see the signs mentioned, I didn't see any caterpillars. As I would learn later, they can be hard to see, as they're pretty camouflaged. My inspection did turn up leaf hoppers. I hoped eliminating them would solve my problems. I took the painful advice and cut off all the blooms. I then began smushing leaf hoppers. I do not recall how long that lasted, but I would inspect my four plants daily and smush 3 to 5. I was excited to see new blooms forming at some point and couldn't wait for the purple. To my disappointment, I began seeing what I'd later understand was frass all over the plants. I pulled up my post from before and felt the same thing was happening again. I finally noticed a caterpillar and began looking over all the plants closely in the morning and evening. In the beginning, I removed 20+ little worms. The more blooms they'd eaten, the more they blended in with the plant because of their translucent skin. It became normal to pull off 5 to 10 of them every morning and evening. There seemed to be no way I'd get on top of the problem. I'd pull off all that I could see, but there were always more the next day. The buds kept growing, but few blooms would emerge. I made the decision to leave the buds this time since it was so late in the summer. I figured my best chance at experiencing blooms was to chase the problem. I wasn't sure there would be time for more buds to come.

I was searching caterpillars online by describing what I was picking off, but I was having trouble. One night, while walking past the plant, I saw a pink moth that I'd never seen before. I was able to identify it online as a southern pink moth, and the caterpillars lined up with that. I finally new what was causing the problem. I quickly realized the moth was causing problems all over the country. I was discouraged to read that many people that had the problem gave up after failing to find a solution. I kept picking the caterpillars daily and tried the recommended homemade pepper spray. I think I boiled cayenne pepper in water and sprayed that several days. I read online that many tried BT without solid results. I decided to try that anyway. We'd gotten a couple of unusual late summer rains. Those rains seemed to have washed eggs onto the leaves. I'm still unsure if what I saw on the leaves were washed eggs or newly laid eggs. I stared spraying the newly emerging buds and all the existing blooms, no matter their condition, with BT daily. The number of caterpillars I was picking off daily had shrunk to 3 t 5 prior to spraying the BT, and soon, I wasn't seeing any worms. More late rain had the buds growing quickly and blooming. I was delighted to get full blooms when I felt all was lost. I'm not sure what did the trick or if it was just lucky rain and picking them off daily. I continued to spray the BT every few days and kill any pink moths I would see. I'd usually see one of them fly out of the plant about every other time I would spray. I actually killed four of them this morning as I was typing this, and I noticed the first caterpillar in about a month. It might be the start of another round of horrible. I hadn't sprayed BT in over a week. It's not been a fun battle, but I'm happy I fought the problem to at least get a month of blooms. I hope there isn't another full infestation coming and that I get another month or two to enjoy the blooms.

I also hope this provides useful to someone. If you're reading this and have the problem, I feel your pain. Maybe the picture I've posted will provide some inspiration to fight. I don't like spraying, but it has been wonderful finally seeing the bees and hummers in the flowers. Hopefully I didn't just get lucky with the rain. I'm dreading what may be a continued battle and wondering if I should just start spraying BT on the plants every few days as they emerge next year. Best of luck to everyone.

Thanks for posting the follow-up Patty! And lol, I knew I had the southern pink moth when I originally answered you but had no idea it was the culprit. Here's a picture from my garden in July 2020


It's interesting how we have the same pest but on different Salvias. Obviously they like that family. They haven't touched my Mystic Spires, which have bloomed like crazy all season. Just in the last week or so have I noticed some on my Darcy, which otherwise has also been fantastic all summer so I've now started removing eggs. But they have been a nuisance on my S. greggi 'Radio Red."

I just went outside and took these pictures of eggs and one caterpillar (all gone now!) I tried to get a shot of a flower with the characteristic hole, but it's hard to see.

If I get a horrible case at some point I'll look into bt. The most I ever use is a bit of soap spray.

Btw I'm wondering what you're calling leafhoppers. Do you mean grasshoppers or katydids? Leafhoppers are extremely small and usually jump way too fast to catch. They suck plant juice and scar the leaves, but don't chew.

For others who aren't familiar with these sneaky little guys,
Little white single eggs on the calyx



Larva, this is a big one. They start out much smaller and hide in the buds


The telltale hole. I'm never sure if it's going in or out, and honestly this might even be something else entirely, but it's eating my Salvias!!

Well, funny you mention that because I've got four types of salvia, and this is the only one they've gotten on. I've got salvia greggi fuchsia, black and blue salvia, and a red one that I don't recall the name. Mystic spires is the only one they've been on, but that is in the front yard and others back. There is thick st Augustine grass in the front, and it likely makes for a better hiding place than the thinner Bermuda around the other types in the back.

As for the leafhoppers, I'll post a picture I found that looks like the couple of adults I came across. The majority of what o was killing were more of a gray color, and I'm assuming they were nymphs. You are right, they are extremely quick and don't stay still. I was very close to the plants on my hunts. Even turning leaves over and turning upside down to try to look at the underside of leaves. I came across many of the shed skeletons. I understand they suck nutrients that can make the leaves look a bit yellow. I might be wrong in any of this. Definitely experienced the yellowing. I've seen the grey nymphs since but abandoned fighting them once I realized the caterpillars were causing the problem I wanted to fix.
I'm not sure if the adult picture I'll post is even related to the small grey nymphs. I think I saw the grey ones listed as plant hoppers too.

Haha, either you're way faster than I am or your leafhoppers are bigger. Mine are 1/4 - 1/2 inch long, jump away when I get near, and travel in large numbers. However, here's a little factoid I found: There are more leafhopper species worldwide than all species of birds, mammals, reptiles and amphibians combined. Holy moly! So yours could easily be different than mine.