Vine Weevil
Risk near you, next 48h
See whether your local forecast favours this disease right now.
When it strikes
Treat, then re-check in 5–7 days
Pick off the worst material, apply the organic option below, and look again after five to seven days. If the spread continued, escalate rather than repeating the same treatment.
Carried by insects
An insect moves it plant to plant, so controlling the carrier matters as much as treating the symptom. Check for the vector before assuming the plants infected each other directly.
It carries over to next season in soil, debris or seed — which is why rotation matters here, not just treatment.
Safe to compost
No pathogen carries over on this material, so it can go on an ordinary heap with the rest of the garden waste.
When and where to look
Scout the planting while temperatures hold between 5°C and 25°C.
Rule these out first
Same category, and at least one host crop in common — so they are genuinely confusable in the same part of the garden.
The signs that lead here
Full problem lists for these crops
About
Vine weevil (Otiorhynchus sulcatus) is the pest that kills container plants overnight in autumn. The adults notch leaves harmlessly; it is the fat white grubs eating the roots below the compost that do the damage, and by the time the plant wilts the roots are already gone.
Symptoms
Distinctive U-shaped notches bitten out of leaf edges of heuchera, bergenia, rhododendron and strawberry. Later, a plant wilts suddenly and lifts out of its pot with no roots at all, revealing cream C-shaped grubs with brown heads in the compost.
Organic Treatment
Water pots with parasitic nematodes (Steinernema kraussei works down to 5°C) in late August or September, when the grubs are small. Tip out and check pots when repotting, and squash every grub you find. Adults can be collected by torchlight after dark.
Chemical Treatment
Acetamiprid drenches for container plants control grubs where permitted. They are unnecessary in open ground, where natural predators usually keep numbers tolerable.
Prevention
Adults cannot fly and climb in from below, so a band of horticultural glue around pot rims or legs is effective. Check the rootball of every new plant before it joins the collection — this is how vine weevil arrives in most gardens.
Crops at risk
Related problems
Vine Weevil risk by location
Each location has a month-by-month profile computed from the weather archive: how many hours a year actually meet this disease’s thresholds.