Plant more asters, especially Purple Dome, near your phlox. The rabbits will always choose Purple Dome first. LOL. All my aster clumps are eaten back to about 4 inches by the rabbits. They still manage to regrow and bloom in the fall and I don't have to cut them back at all. The only stalks of Purple Dome that don't get eaten by the rabbits are the ones inside the phlox clumps, I kid you not! Purple Dome grows very fast & becomes, in my yard at least, sort of wild and spreads around a bit. I let it go do its thing, because it saves so many phlox stems from being eaten. I'm not saying it's foolproof, but it helps and it's cheaper than planting out parsley every year for the rabbits.

Phyl, If I remember, you had cold and rainy weather for a long time early this season -- longer than we had. Cosmos are day length sensitive. Since you stated you planted these from seed, they won't begin blooming until August. They only way to trick cosmos into blooming sooner is to start them in seed trays, and plant out the plugs. This is what we do; and, actually they just started blooming about 10 days ago. Zinnia foliage is one of the favorites of the Japanese Beetles. They love the zinnias -- second only to the dahlias. Our zinnias are planted about 8" apart. It doesn't sound like yours are planted too close. And, we always give them a shot of fertilizer high in nitrogen. We have to be careful on the timing of the fertilizer because it can cause weak necks on the flowers; however, it greens up the plant and gives the plant the length we need. The Chrysanthemum carinatum I hate to tell you; but, DH plowed that under. The flowers were getting eaten all the time -- never any harvestable stems. And, lots of little bugs setting up housekeeping in all the plants. So, buh bye to the Chrysanthemum carinatum; and, hello to Copperhead. Anyway, if you have buds, you just need to give them some time. Zinnias and Cosmos are technically a late season crop.

Thank you Susanzone5 for your input. I knew it wasn't ants or bugs eating the leaves but hadn't seen any deer around for a while. The fence is a great idea. Won't help me this year but I will keep your advice in mind for next year.

lisk, you would have seen any insect that would cause such rapid defoliation. Mammal pest of sunflower? Deer, possibly. They forage at night. Rodent pest? Rabbit, possibly. They are active at dawn and dusk; you might miss them also. Intriguing problem, though. Thanks.