Question

Bugs on Porch   The past few years, around the same time (which I is now), I notice these tiny crawling insects that are on my shrubs that wrap around my outside porch. It always comes right after I trim the shrubs, so I am assuming that they live on the shrubs? Perhaps originating from the ground underneath the shrubs?, which is 2 year old mulch for the most part  They get on to the porch and crawl all over the railings and posts. They eventually will get to my hanging flowers I just bought if I don't do something. Last year I didn't catch it in time and my plants all had them eventually.

They are different sizes and look the same, dull green in color, long football shaped body, with 3 or so legs on each side, with very long antennas coming out from one end. They are very easy to squash, if you put your finger near them they will run away.  They are very hard to see, even on the white railings as they are so small. They are about the size of a grain of rice or smaller, sometimes much smaller. They don't fly as they have no wings, but they move quickly and will jump, like a flea does, when prodded by a piece of paper.


I want to make sure they do not get on to the hanging flower baskets I have on the porch hanging off of the upper beams under the soffit and roof of the porch. The only way they could get to them is to walk up one of the porch pillars, on to a long hanging hook then on to the hanging basket.  Is there something I can put on the hook to make sure they do not cross on to the flower basket, maybe like Vaseline or something else? This would be a precaution till I could find out how to kill all of these pests that are on the shrubs.


I have a lot of shrubs, they are trimmed but large in size, so it is difficult for me to move the flowers elsewhere around my house outside, so that is why I wanted to trap them on the hook if they were to migrate that far north prior to their elimination.


I have attached an image.  I have not been able to find out what these are or even any pictures on the Internet.


Thanks in advance for any help you can provide on how to get rid of them. I'm hoping there is some safe solution I can spray the shrubs and ground with to eliminate them.

Answer
Jeff,

These look like springtails (see http://www.livingwithbugs.com/springtails.html for a close-up picture). Springtails can be extremely abundant in garden soils. They are completely harmless and won't damage your landscape plants. If you want to treat a good option would be insecticidal soap, see http://www.livingwithbugs.com/insecticidal_soap.html for details.

Jack DeAngelis