Spider Mites

Spider mites are very small, almost invisible to the naked eye, looking like tiny moving dots. Up close, they are actually arachnids (like spiders) meaning the adults have 8 legs. They are less than 1/20 of an inch, so they are only slightly bigger than the thickness of a sheet of paper. They're oval in shape and can be red, orange, yellow, green or brown.

 

In Virginia, we have several varieties of spider mites, including oak spider mites, southern red mites, European red mites, boxwood mites, clover mites, hickory spider mites, and a huge variety of others. Each variety of mites has a preferred vegetation, which include (depending on the variety of spider mite) most trees, garden vegetables, houseplants, greenhouse plants, and flowers.

 

As spider mites overwinter as adults in soil and the underside of leaves, or as eggs that hatch in the spring, many varieties of spider mites are most active in late spring, with the damage being most visible and irreversible in the summer.