Spider mites? Pics

[Anastasiya]

Hi guys,
My favorite Creole Lady is not doing to good. The leaves are yellowing and are falling off. They do look like a classic spider mite case, but i can not find a single bug! Im looking every day, sprayed with oil for 3 weeks then moved on to a chemical (Brayer Disease and Mite control) so far sprayed only twice but see no improvement.  Im in Florida, and its HOT! I water lots, and fertilize with HVH fertilizer every other week. All my plants are treated with Bayer 3-1 the granular version, and as soon as i noticed this happening i sprayed all of them with Neem oil... could it be some sort of chemical reaction, or overload? Or maybe overwatering? All the other plants are doing great though. Please help, i'm stomped 

Here is how it started:


Here is what it looks like now:


And here is a leaf:

[Anastasiya]

Oh, almost forgot, i have another plant i had a question about. The plant does not look sick or anything. But its been producing these small leaves all over the stems, and is growing really slowly height wise, it also hasn't bloomed in a while... any ideas?

Plant 2:

[davidwood]

I don't think that was Spider Mites, even if it was it looks to be clear now which is good news.
The bush looks awful now with them long thin bare branches but looks perfect for pruning, now you are forced to do it you could actually turn it round to make it become a very attractive bush in a few months, as long as you have some new growth at the top prune heavily, leave 2 or 3 nodes at the bottom and be brutal.
Overwatering may have caused the problem so take care and for sure once you prune you need to virtually stop watering at all while you have no leaves.

As for the other picture with all the little leaves, once I had that myself on Hot Pepper, I was quite pleased at first and put it down to new growth from spraying Supernova. Problem was within 2 months it had died and the cause was root rot, I had it in a very hot place and was overwatering, not sure if yours is the same thing but does show you need to take care even when its hot with water.

[Anastasiya]

Thank you David,
Yea, guess i really have to watch my watering. I've never had to prune any of mine so low, so your saying to go all the way down to leave like 6-8 inches of the ground? I feel like im going to kill it... do i use something to seal the tips of the pruned branches? Should i move it to shade after?

[davidwood]

You only need something to seal over it if there is a chance of it getting wet till its sealed, if Florida is like here its usually browned over and sealed in a few hours so I don't bother.

I have gone as low as 2inches if its above the first node, but ideally you want to be at least above the second node and cut about a quarter inch above that. With your tree as its a bit older and you have a few branches I would prune just above that single yellow leaf in the picture and pretty much prune straight across. As long as you have healthy growth at the top you will get new shoots below and never once have I regretted doing it.

Not sure about shade [others may be wiser], I never do, only because I want the foliage to acclimatise immediately so I tend to leave it where I want it to grow, I suppose if the new leaves where burning you would move it and its most likely in to hot a place anyway if they are.

[Anastasiya]

Thank you again. I will do as you advice. Here is a litle interesting thing, i ran across another one of Creole Lady bushes in a local store, bought it, brought it home and just out of prophylactic reasons treated with a low dose of Bayer 3-1 granules, just in case. Well, a day later im noticing the leaves starting yellow  ..... grrrr, is it posible that Creole Lady is somehow sensitive to this chemical?

[davidwood]

I doubt its Bayer, you must not forget that leaves do turn yellow for all sorts of reasons and is very normal, just moving a cv to a different location can cause stress which is a reason in itself. The first 10 to 15 mins of my day is spent walking through the garden cutting of yellow leaves.

What was interesting for me was seeing the long thin branches on your CL, that happens with me a lot and its to do with the heat and them growing quickly, Chris wrote a good piece on why it happens in the hot Tropical weather a while back, he explained it quite clearly, but for the life of me I cant find it, but it does mean you will have to do a lot more pruning than normal to get side branches and a nice shape bush.

[ConstantGardener]

Anastasiya,
I was just wondering how your hibiscus were doing?  Did you ever decide what caused their decline?

I had some that looked like that last spring and summer, and I'm pretty sure the problem was spidermites, although sometimes I examined the plants and couldn't see anything.  I think they must have died off from the Bayer 3 in 1 mitacide that I was using and then the eggs would hatch, and I'd have another outbreak before I could get a handle on it.

I'm in Clearwater, FL.   Where in FL are you?

Chris