My Desert Roses are under attack...

[TeeShark]

Need help identifying a pest. Sorry for the long post but I just wanted to give the experts some background info. feel free to skip to the pics below or read on if you like...

I hope someone here might be able to help identify a pest that has already killed 1 of the pair of Desert Rose I got late last year. I pulled them in before it got too cold and they went dormant. I did not over water of them as I have read that they love dry soil, if anything they didn't receive enough water. So I sat them out soon as it warmed up. I live in Atlanta,Ga... we have about a 2 week Spring here... they dont call it Hotlanta for nothing.

Anyways, I noticed no new growth and 1 of them was a rescue from Home Depot. Only paid $1 for it but it was a pathetic excuse for a plant. (Probably infested already).

Since it was already dead, I opened it up and was shocked to find tons of these little worm things. I sprayed with Ortho 3-1 or 3 in 1. I saturated the dead guy. Finally seeing little buds on my healthier Desert rose but for it to be may and no leaves yet is nuts and it has a lot of dead limbs. I decided to peel back more of the dead one today, a week after I sprayed them and couldn't believe there were still a few scragglers alive and kickin.

Obviously, i will need to treat the healthy 1 again but I sure would like to know what these things are... I searched 20 websites on desert Rose's with no luck finding any pests like mine. Boy do I feel special. Lol

Any assistance would be greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance.

Ps. After I tackle this problem, I look forward to learning how to start new desert Rose's. I love making babies... plants! (Blushing) Guess I should have stated that first. ;-)

 

[zigs]

Welcome to the forum

Not a pest I recognize but they look like fly maggots, possibly fungus gnats.

 

[Marck]

Greetings, welcome to the Forums.

By Desert-rose, I presume you mean Adenium obesum or a related species or hybrid. The photo of the insect larvae is good, but it would have been very helpful to have seen photos of the larvae in habitat on the dead or ailing plants. Adenium are known for their pachycaul trunks and branches. It sounds like the larvae were inside a dead (rotting?) trunk. It is not clear if the insects are the cause of the plant's death or detritivores consuming decomposing plant tissue. By the way, there is no need to spray pesticide on a dead plant, just dispose of the remains in the trash.