Sow bug, pill bug, I'm not sure there's a difference...we called them potato bugs when we were kids but I couldn't tell you why....I don't remember :) While usually more of a green house pest than garden pest (injurious to seedlings as well as decaying plant material), you seem to have some hungry enough they are feeding on your stressed (need water) plants (- that points to large numbers of them to me). I think it would help if you could clean up leaf and needle debris under the plants behind your coneflowers, I suspect you may have large numbers of the pill bugs there where they are cool and protected during the day. I had a heck of a time with them one year only - I was letting a little rapidly spreading 1" sedum fill in around perennials thinking it made nice groundcover, when what it was making was pill bug habitat. Removing the sedum solved the problem. There is also a flake/granular type bait available, should have a picture of the insects it targets on the container and may be called something like cutworm-pillbug-earwig bait. I'm sure not pet friendly though, and my guess is eliminating their hiding places should take care of them. You could compost the leaf litter/needle debris and return it to your garden later, let it decompose someplace else for now.

My personal taste is for the drift of coneflowers, but we all have different reasons for garden. I think they are such great flowers that help out so many different wonderful creatures--nectar for butterflies/bees, seed for finches (I don't get too many volunteers since the finches get them), and host plant for Silver Checkerspot and possibly Gorgone Checkerspot, depending on your location. Looks like you coneflowers are right up against your house? That might be why you don't get enough finches coming in and eating up your seeds. You could dig out some of your coneflowers and give away or start another garden; often this needs to happen with most perennials--they all need dividing every so often. I did this last year with mine because I wanted to include some other flowers/plants in my beds, and it worked. One other thing is to learn what the seedlings look like and pull in the spring and either compost or give away. This way you can keep the two or three you like to have there and be able to have the flowers you want. The Phlox can be the same way--it might be thing you're pulling next year. Just life in the garden, always tinkering and adjusting and balancing. Hope you get to enjoy those beautiful goldfinches enjoying the buffet you have for them.

Congrats, Mike! Was yours a giant giant or a more modestly sized one? There is a big variation in the size of the ones I release - once, there was a super sized one that had emerged at the same time as an extra small one, and the big one was twice as big as the little one. I meant to get a picture of them before releasing them, but forgot. Hops don't host giant swallowtails - they host question marks here, and reportedly commas, red admirals and others. GSTs use members of the citrus family, including ptelea trifoliata/hops tree - maybe that's what you meant. MissSherry

Ashcraft here are a few plants I grow for the hummingbirds and are used by them. Like Donna your hummingbrid populattion could be the greates in August and September when they are on their migration sout for the year. A plus with these plants is that butterflies will use them too. 4 O'clock Purple Coneflower Truks cap' Lions ear Black and blue salvia (for sure) Greggiis Shrimp plant Mexican bush sage (blooms in late summer in time for migrants) Honeysuckles(goldflame, coral, and Alabama crimson) Davie 'verty' cuphea Lady in red salvia (annual) Subrotunda salvia (annual) Yvonne's salvia (annual) Cannas (Robert Kemp, Peach Giantum There are many others but you will not go wrong with these. Other than the ones I have noted as annuls are perinnals and unless we have an expremely hard freeze here in zone 8 will come back year after year. The annuals will reseed. It is also easy to save the seed from them.