Solved What are these pests?

after a terrible summer last year, so many of my shrubs and perennials suffered at the hands of 'something'. Leaves were curling, growing strangely...it was terrible. Last week, I went to my garden waste bin (which I had filled during autumn) and when I opened the lid, there were hundreds of tiny insects (see photo). Does anyone know what they are? Are they whitefly? If so, do you think that these could have caused lots of damage? Will the winter kill them off?

 

Hi

It is whitefly ..... doing no harm as such but it tells me your compost is too wet , cover the top in shredded news paper which will help dry it out or the easy soloution is leave the lid off, the white fly hate the cold ....

Spruce

 

Never found white fly living on compost.
Is there a lot of brassica type leaves in there that are not rotting down?

White fly are usually specific to certain plants, apart from glasshouse white fly which will attack a fair few different plants under glass.
Out in the garden I've only ever found white fly to be a problem on brassicas, most trees and shrubs dont seem to attract them that much.

 

Thanks for your replies. I have managed to confuse everyone with this message I think lol. All of the damage in my garden was happening during the summer months. Almost all of my plants were affected (shrubs and perennials). I didn't know what was causing the problem. My garden waste bin is not a compost bin. It's just for garden waste which is then collected every two weeks. At the end of the summer/autumn, I just cut back everything as a lot of my plants were just looking terrible because of their shrivelled up and deformed leaves. My garden bin collection stopped over the winter, so everything I cut back has just been sitting there in the wheelie bin. When I opened it, I wondered if all the whitefly had been causing the problem in the garden. When I cut it all back, had I simply transferred the whitefly to the wheelie bin? I hope that makes sense.

 

did you water the plants as it was a hot summer

 

Have you tryed white vinegar in water in a spray bottle i had a nest of ants in the garden tryed many things to no avail i really prefer to use natural methods if i can , i read pure white vinegar can deter most insects away as they hate the smell so i tryed it and with in 3 days they were gone It aslo said if you use diluted white vinegar on plants it kills most insects so i did try it and it worked

I use it in the home and can be used for many things so its useful to keep in the house

When you cut or put any plant grass cuttings etc in the bin spray some white vinegar in the bin if any insects are in there it will kill them and your bin smell fresher

I also use slug gone a natural slug pellet made from sheeps wool they work very well slugs are detered by it so they tend to leave the plant alone you can only buy it on net and they come in a bag , its not expensive and it goes along way much much better than those green slug pellets ,safer and cleaner