March of the Millipedes

Helpline ques­tions become very inter­est­ing and some­times chal­leng­ing this time of the year. I spent a day at the OSUE Brown County Office this past week and stud­ied a vari­ety of plants, leaves and bugs.

A small plas­tic con­tainer revealed a very famil­iar sight to me – curled up Mil­li­pedes! Every few years we wit­ness what we call the “March of the Mil­li­pedes to Nowhere” in our basement.

Mil­li­pedes are com­mon occa­sional pests that some­times invade build­ings, par­tic­u­larly when the weather turns hot and dry. While mil­li­pedes some­times enter in large num­bers, they do not bite, sting, or trans­mit dis­eases, nor do they infest food, cloth­ing or dry, struc­turally sound wood. Mil­li­pedes vary in both color and size. The most com­mon species that invades build­ings is the “gar­den mil­li­pede”, which is brownish-black in color and about one inch long. Although mil­li­pedes are often called “thou­sand leg­gers”, they actu­ally have far fewer legs, but each body seg­ment has two pairs of very short legs. When dis­turbed, mil­li­pedes often curl up into a “C” shape and remain motion­less. They crawl slowly and pro­tect them­selves by secret­ing a cyanide-like com­pound that has an unpleas­ant odor. Even my cat has learned to leave these “stinky” crit­ters alone.

In a recent OSUE Buck­eye Yard and Gar­den Line, Joe Boggs shares that no one entirely under­stands why this mass “migra­tion” takes place. It has been spec­u­lated that mil­li­pede stam­pedes may be in asso­ci­a­tion with mat­ing behav­ior, or in response to drought or flood­ing. For­tu­nately, such mass migra­tions are short-lived and those that wan­der into homes will dry out and quickly die becom­ing easy fod­der for vac­uum cleaners.

OSUE Fact Sheet HYG-2067A-10, (avail­able on ohioline.edu.osu), states that total con­trol of mil­li­pedes dur­ing migra­tion peri­ods is dif­fi­cult, but sev­eral insec­ti­cides are reg­is­tered for “perime­ter” treat­ments. The con­cept is to apply a bar­rier of insec­ti­cide that will either repel or kill the mil­li­pedes that try to cross the bar­ri­ers. Both liq­uid sprays and gran­u­lar for­mu­la­tions are avail­able at most gar­den cen­ters. These prod­ucts should list mil­li­pedes on the label as not all insec­ti­cides are able to con­trol these non-insect arthro­pods. Please be sure to read and fol­low all label direc­tions carefully!

Other gar­den­ing ques­tions for the Helpline? Why is my cucum­ber vine wilt­ing? Why are the leaves on my Burn­ing Bush turn­ing white and falling off? What is eat­ing the leaves on my Knock-Out Roses? What is this weed that I found grow­ing in my flower bed? Many of these ques­tions will not have one sim­ple answer. Research will often reveal sev­eral options for an answer. It is impor­tant to share all the facts about your gar­den­ing problem.

For exam­ple, what hap­pen to the leaves of the Burn­ing Bush? Did they sim­ply turn white, or were there brown spots first? Shar­ing all the facts will help when we are research­ing for a pos­si­ble answer.

What about the mys­tery weed? The Helpline client pulled the weed and placed it in a plas­tic cup filled with water. Instead of han­dling a wilted spec­i­men, this healthy weed made our ID process much sim­pler. This weed had appeared in a flower bed close to a bird feeder. This prickly weed was a Buf­falo bur, some­times called Kansas this­tle and prickly night­shade. This tap rooted annual weed bears long, yel­low spines on stems, leaves and flower heads and can grow up to 2 feet high. Drought resis­tant, its high­est occur­rence is in dry, exposed soil. The oblong leaves are 2–3 inches long with deep rounded lobes and are cov­ered with very dense, stiff, and sharp spines. Bright yel­low flow­ers can be seen in sum­mer. In the fall, berries up to 3/8 inch in diam­e­ter are enclosed in the dried flower parts and are filled with black, wrin­kled, flat pit­ted seeds. Con­trol of this plant is impor­tant as it is a host for the Col­orado potato bee­tle. Buf­falo bur can be pulled when the soil is moist, but be sure to wear gloves to avoid injury from the spines!

Don’t for­get about e-mailing your gar­den­ing ques­tions to Mike Han­nah at mhannah2@msn.com. Be sure to include your phone num­ber when you send your e-mail. Mas­ter Gar­den­ers will then con­tact you with sug­ges­tions and impor­tant information.

How is your gar­den far­ing through this hot weather? I head to the gar­den every other day now to give all the toma­toes a good drink of water. Toma­toes are start­ing to ripen, but some­how haven’t made it to the house yet.

There’s noth­ing quite like the taste of a sun-warmed tomato — espe­cially when it is eaten in the garden!

Faye Mahaf­fey is an OSUE Brown County Mas­ter Gar­dener volunteer.

Posted by Tina Murdock on Aug 9 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.