How to Detect Flower Pests

Check your flowers for pests every day, if possible, and try not to let inspections go for more than a week. A magnifying glass or hand lens will help you find young pests or particularly small specimens, such as mites or aphids, hiding on the undersides of leaves.

Use double-sided tape or yellow sticky pad sheets to collect pests as they travel through your garden for closer inspection. The University of Connecticut notes that yellow or blue sticky cards are good tools to detect gnats, leafhoppers, thrips and whiteflies.

Look for signs that pests have been in your flower garden. Eaten leaves, petals or stems may signal an infestation, as can foliage that has been broken or folded over unnaturally. Droppings, slime trails and cocoons can be found if pests are in your flowers. Transparency in the foliage or spots that have turned yellow, brown or black are also signs of flower pests.