Kristy you can ID the hornworms by the little spike on their butt, even little ones have it. They get big, about 3". Sometimes you'll see them with little white eggs stuck to their back. You should leave those be. The eggs are from a parasitic wasp that preys on caterpillars, especially hornworms. Shawn the second pic is the clerodendrum (bleeding heart vine). I've had that one for about 3 years. I also have a standard solid green foliage one and another with purple and red blooms that I've had for about 7 years. Some years I cut them back enough to move them inside and allow them to keep growing. Other years I cut them to the soil and let them go dormant in the unheated (but above freezing) greenhouse. They can become monsters in warm climates. I've seen privacy fences in S. FL completely covered. It looks beautiful.

"I eat toms that have been chewed on by rats" That paints quite the nasty picture! :) Hope your not running a restaurant! :) "A really good ripe tomato can be too valuable too waste" Now that is the truth! Thanks for the replies. Well, I talked to a friend last night who said the same thing and yes, even he said he would eat tomato's with minor rat damage. yuck. :) So eat the tomato I shall! THanks!

Thanks for the replies. Javelina - a peccary? I live in Leisure World in Mesa and I've seen lots of rabbits, feral cats and even coyotes but never anything that looked like a pig. The rabbits around here are generally pretty small but a few weeks ago I saw a rather large one with very long ears - I was surprised as it was about the size of a large cat. It looked a lot different from the normal rabbits I have seen over the past 3 years. My Agaves are pretty small (the ones that got eaten) - about 6 inches in diameter - planted about two years ago. One that was uprooted and eaten was the same size and species as the one in the upper right of the picture below. You can see the remaining leaves that were left after the meal. I actually have a variety of Agaves and whoever the culprit was only seems to like this one particular species. The other Agaves were not touched. I was thinking something smaller than a peccary as my neighbor, who has much larger plants of the same species, lost a number of the same species earlier this year. Originally I thought it might have been the heat that killed them but I noticed that something had dug around the plants that died. See picture below: The large one in the middle is almost two feet across. The gravel immediately around the base of the plants had been pushed aside, almost as if someone was planning on digging them up. Originally I thought maybe my neighbor had asked his landscaper to remove them but when I contacted him he said he did not ask his landscaper to do any work this summer. Almost all of his Agaves of this species look like the one above with gravel around the base pushed out. Based on this I thought it might have been small rabbits or rodents digging to get to the roots. Mine, being smaller than his, was completely uprooted as you can see in the first picture. Last year I made the mistake of planting a spineless Opuntia but soon something was munching on the pads (rabbits I think). Over that winter it was eaten to the ground but the roots had still survived, so I dug it up and put it in a planter where it revived and started regrowth, but if I now have something that eats the roots, then there is nothing to revive. I have a variety of cacti with spines that I could plant to replace the eaten plants but I have had bad luck in that area with cacti. I lost several barrel cacti in that location - instead of growing they just seemed to get smaller and dry up - dunno why. I planted Agave as replacement and they seemed to do better but now I have something eating them - although I hope its just that one species and leaves the other Agave alone.

I know a crazy person who puts peds (those nylon footies they give you at the shoe store when you don't have socks on) on her tomatoes when they start getting big. Obviously, she's not growing a ton of plants or anything. She says it works, but the thing with squirrels is that they all have their own personalities, and there's no one tactic that works on all of them. Sey: "Possibly squirrels. They usually haul away the things . Rats, mice eat at the location. Rabbits cannot reach too high." Yes, if it's still left on the plant, it's usually a rat, mouse, vole, etc. If there's no sign of gnawing, it could be a raccoon, which don't gnaw them off but pick them. Then you're really in trouble.