Oh My!

I am going to go with what has been a big culprit in my yard this spring, inchworms/cankerworms! I can't imagine much of anything would want to munch on those fuzzy leaves though.

I hope Rudy makes it and grows big and strong.

That would have been my first guess too, trovesoftrilliums. But it was not the work of worms or caterpillars.

I'm going to go with rollie-pollies, no one ever suspects them, but sometimes they are caught in the act!

I so love the flower of "Indian Summer"....maybe the nicest 'Rudy' flower.

How could you even accuse cute little rollie-pollies of such a thing, funnthsun? It is true, rollies' antics allow them to get away with a lot of mischief in the garden without a hint of blame. But this time, the guilty partiers were much easier to catch in the act visually.

I hope to see flowers one day, rouge21. :) Some of the plants are growing quicker than they are being eaten, but others are down to the crown with not a leaf remaining.

I'll give a hint: The guilty ones were actually invited to dinner later. Such rude guests.

Snails!! The snails in my garden will consume anything. They did a number on my Rudbeckia hirta last year - it looked just like that.

Apparently fuzzy leaves are no deterrant to a determined mollusk :-)

Fortunately, this garden does not have a large snail and slug population yet. (Probably because it was all concrete until recently.) At our old house, I would get up early to hand pluck snails from the daylilies to keep their numbers in check. The slugs on the other hand, were a yucky, unpleasant task by hand.

It does look like their work, gardengal48. But the slug and snail alibis all checked out, so they cannot be charged.

Another hint: The diners were mostly olive-green and yellow in color, with some black markings.

From your description of the bug I'd have to say spotted cucumber beetle. I didn't know they would attack Rudbeckia

Rouge 21--If you think Indian Summer is the nicest Rudbeckia you haven't tried Cappuccino Rudbeckia. It is my absolute favorite bar none and looks nothing like the pictures on the seed packages. It has a deep burgundy red tipped with gold petals and a big brown button. The flowers are easily 4 inches across and pair nicely next to dwarf Shasta daisy

I would guess caterpillers, I don't know what kind of butterfly's you get, but your description sounds like Monarch.

The leaf damage was not caused by any of the beetles, dowlinggram. Which may, or may not, ease your mind.

So far, the ruled out gang includes: worms/caterpillars, rollie-pollies, snails/slugs and beetles.

The past hints were:
--The guilty ones were actually invited to dinner later. Such rude guests.
--The diners were mostly olive-green and yellow in color, with some black markings.
Newest hint: Roughly 4.5 inches.

4.5 inches rules out rabbits, and deer! LOL, some type of bird then?

I thought about hummingbirds, but then dismissed it as ridiculous. Now...? Not chewed, but death by flapping, lol. You've got me on this one!

How about salamanders?

This post was edited by funnthsun on Fri, May 31, 13 at 19:44

Not salamanders, funnthsun. I wish we had more salamanders. They aren't very common in dry Southern California.

Jennypat is on the right track. :)

How about a monarch butterfly caterpillar? Or some kind of butterfly caterpillar?

Thanks for that suggestion dowlinggram. By chance do you have any pictures of this rudbeckia in your garden from last year?

swallowtail butterfly caterpillars? Did you plant parsley to invite them?

Dee

Caterpillars were already ruled out, prairiemoon2 and diggerdee. As stated a few posts back, jennypat was correct when laughingly suggesting a bird.

The past hints were:
--The guilty ones were actually invited to dinner later. Such rude guests.
--The diners were mostly olive-green and yellow in color, with some black markings.
-- Roughly 4.5 inches
--These individuals are a western US species, but a similar species is common and widespread.

Yikes, I missed the 4.5 inches thing! Would't want to see a caterpillar that big, lol!

Dee

Goldfinches? Or some sort of finch? Although that seems too small and I'm not sure I get the "late to dinner" clue?

And we have a winning answer! Lesser goldfinches. I thought we had an agreement, those birds and me; I keep two nyjer thistle feeders full for them, and planned to let the Rudbeckia flowers go to seed for them to eat (dinner later) because they enjoyed the snack so much last year. Rudbeckias have a very long bloom season here, and take the heat without a whimper. So I planted about 20.

Yet the little birdbrains seem to think they are entitled to a free salad bar, too! (I guess they don't realize that no plants equals no rudbeckia flowers to produce seed later.) They perch on the plants and pull apart the leaves to eat. Apparently, they also like sunflower leaves. I saw damaged plants last year too, but did not know what caused it. This year I have more goldfinches visiting, so there is more damage.

Goldfinches seemed an unexpected cause of shreaded leaves. Thank you for playing my guessing game! :)

Here is a link that might be useful: You Tube Video