Something eating zinnias
Something eats zinnia sprouts from seed and also eating the plants I bought from nursery. I scattered snail poison around don’t think it’s snails. What can I do about this?
Comments (10)
lgteacher
2 years agoRelated Discussions
[Pic] Help! What's Eating My Zinnias? [Pic]
Comments (5)It could be flea beetles. You might be able to catch them in the act of eating a small hole in a zinnia leaf, if you observe your zinnias from time to time. Flea beetles are skittish, and can jump like a flea, so hand-picking them is out of the question. I had a flea beetle outbreak in my zinnia garden a couple of years ago, and our guineas made short work of them. I have no idea what caused the outbreak. It was sort of like a population explosion. We live in a rural area, surrounded by farm fields, and we have had some interesting insect problems in the garden. Occasionally blister bugs would fly in. They seem to have a taste for zinnia pollen florets. Oddly, nine-spotted cucumber beetles were something of a problem in my zinnias. I hand picked a few of them. I have some forceps that I use to grab blister beetles. I don't know how seriously to take that "blister" in their name. I suspect it is over-rated, but I could be wrong about that. That flea beetle damage doesn't look too serious. Minor cosmetic damage. If it gets no worse than that, I think you could just ignore the problem. This could be a case of, "If it's not broke, don't fix it." ZM...See MoreSomething Eating My Zinnias?
Comments (11)Dave, "... if I restart zinnias again and say I get bloom, do you think there will be enough time for the flowers to set seeds? My first frost date is October 15." Most zinnias will bloom in 8 weeks from emergence. Some of the smaller varieties are a week or two faster. From the time you pollinate a zinnia stigma, you will have a reasonably "fat" embryo in the seed within three to four weeks, even though the petal and the seed are still "green". That embryo can be viable, even though the seed is not brown. My second generation of zinnias is coming into bloom now, and they were all planted from "green" seed of the first generation. I haven't run the experiment yet, but I have some dried green seed that I am going to try to germinate. So, it will be a bit close, but it could be possible to plant zinnia seeds now or within the next week or so, get flowers, pollinate or cross pollinate them, and have viable green seed by October 15. "What if I dig some out and bring them indoors to set seeds? Will that work?" I started this hobby in 2006 and some of my pollinated scabiosa hybrids weren't mature by our frost date that year, so I dug them up and transplanted them into big 10-inch pots and brought them into my computer room/study where I have fluorescent lights. Their seeds successfully matured and I started them early indoors under fluorescent lights in the Spring of 2007. I got some good hybrids from that, and some of their descendants are still in my zinnia gene pool. So, yes, it can be done. However, the zinnia plants I brought in had aphids on them and a few lady bugs and lady bug larva. The lady bugs had been keeping the aphids in check in the garden but, inside, the aphids multiplied faster than the lady bugs and I wound up using one of those small computer keyboard vacuum cleaners to suck in the aphids. I think in general you will have more problems with plants that you bring inside, but it worked for me. MM...See Moreslug-like eating zinnia seedlings
Comments (1)Half inch could certainly be young slugs, and here in the slug capitol of the world they come in several colors... Do you think they are slugs (easy to identify) or do you suspect something else? If slugs, you'd better get some bait out (many choices of environmentally friendly or otherwise at any garden center) or you won't have your seedlings for long. Another way to deal with them is to go out after dark with a flashlight, armed with a spray bottle of approx 1 part household ammonia to 4 parts water - spritz on the slug and it's dead in a heartbeat, ammonia/water won't harm your seedlings....just don't spray on plants in the heat of the mid day sun and that isn't when you would be finding slugs anyway. Here is a link that might be useful: Young slug...See MoreWhat is eating my poor Zinnias?
Comments (7)Went out last night around 11 pm and saw the culprits - Asiatic beetles. Found this on Gardens Alive! and will rig up my light tonight: "Remove the mulch temporarily and lay down wooden boards or old flat pieces of scrap wood on the soil around the plants being eaten. In the morning, go out with a five gallon bucket with a few inches of soapy water in the bottom and use a piece of flat metal to scrape the beetles (and any slugs cohabitating with them) into the soapy water. Never use gasoline, kerosene or other dangerous material for this chore; soapy water works perfectly well and you wonâÂÂt risk destroying your garden (and groundwater) if you stumble and spill the bucket. And rig some long-term light traps outside the garden. Not too far away, but not in the center of your plantings either; no sense leading the pests to dinner. If you have a lamppost, wrap the area underneath the mantle in sticky paper and leave the light on at night for awhile."...See Moregobluedjm 9/18 CA
2 years agoS Wang
2 years agoken_adrian Adrian MI cold Z5
2 years agoS Wang
2 years agolast modified: 2 years agoS Wang
2 years agozen_man
2 years agolast modified: 2 years agoHello S. Wang,
" ...you were right. it is definitely the earwigs. Ug! I used this mulch all over the yard. "
Years ago, I had mulched my entire zinnia garden with organic leaf mold to a depth of well over an inch. Functionally it was good mulch and protected my zinnia root systems from overheating in the full sun, it conserved soil moisture, and it prevented weed growth. But, as I discovered with a flashlight, it harbored earwigs and pillbugs in scary numbers. The mulch was fairly easy to rake up onto a snow shovel, so my question was, what to do with it? I had an 8-foot in diameter wire-enclosed compost pile, so the mulch went into it for further decomposition. That project took several days. I had heard of farmers using a "dust mulch", so I purchased a truckload of washed river sand and mulched my zinnias with clean sand to a depth of one inch or more. I have since moved from that location (in central rural Maine) to where I am now (east-central rural Kansas). I now consider sand to be a requisite to my gardening, for use as a mulch and as a soil conditioner. And to prevent tracking in mud from the garden. I purchase sand by the 20-ton truckload, because that costs much less per pound than by bags of play sand from a home store.
You could leave the organic mulch in place and bury it in an inch or so of sand. Earwigs are insects, so you could go after them with one or more insecticides. There are systemic insecticides that enter the sap stream of the plant and make the whole plant poisonous, including the new growth of the plant after you applied the insecticides. I am not a fan of poisons, but I have used systemic insecticides out of necessity to control difficult insects like thrips on my indoor gardening zinnias.
It is not obvious what you should do next, but at least you have a better understanding of what is eating your zinnias.
ZM
S Wang thanked zen_man
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