Have you seen any earwigs in the mulch? I know they like to munch on clematis leaves and flowers. The mulch would provide the perfect hiding place for them.

Don't know what beauty burk is.

Could it be that your clematis are not happy in their location due to too much water, not enough, etc?

I have severe problems with earwigs here, they climb up and eat the new growth, leaving the stems.

I have also had root weevils notch the leaves.

Slugs and snails also eat Clemmies.

Bait for slugs and snails, I sprayed Orthene, a systemic insecticide for the earwigs and root weevils. I hated to use such a toxic chemical but the damage last year was severe.

Thank you all for your quick responses!

Yes, I have seen earwigs last year, about a couple of months after I installed the woodchip mulch... And we have lots of slugs came in to our worm compost bin, which means we have them around...

I have been gardening organic 100% so far, so I know how you feel about using Orhene, buyorsell888.

I would also have to use some toxic things to scare them away from my clematises... I love those clematises and I also invested some money to cover up my ugly concrete wall. I can't lose them!

-b

My old-fashioned, organic solution for slugs was the bowl of beer trick. I don't know if it will be enough to save your clematises, but you will get a lot of satisfaction from collecting drowned corpses every morning!

Hi I had the same problem. It turned out to be cutworms. They come out at night and devour the leaves, then hide in the soil during the day. If you pour neem oil in the soil around the clematis it will take care of the problem. I have also heard of people going out after dark with a flashlight and hand picking them, but that sounds like too much work for me.

Wood mulches attract root weevils and they can damage the foliage of an evergreen clematis - not too many other insects will bother with the thick and leathery leaves. But it is highly unusual for root weevil damage to be anything more than cosmetic unless you have a very severe infestation. I've never known the larvae to bother clematis roots although they can do some serious work on heucheras! Eradicating weevils is difficult and I'd never recommend a toxic pesticide for this purpose, but replacing the wood chips with another mulch product will help. Otherwise, use beneficial nematodes.

Again, it sounds more like some cultural issue that is causing the failure rater than simple insect damage. How recently were the clematis planted and how was your winter weather? IIRC, you are located in the PNW? If so, I'd expect that weather played a significant role.

Weevils got my 'Lime Ricky' Huechera, cut if right off at soil line. Dang it. The only Clems they've damaged for me are evergreen.

I've got new growth gnawed off six feet in the air on multiple clems but no slug trails/slime anywhere and I've seen a ton of earwigs but I've also seen a ton of weird worms in the soil. Not earthworms but larvae type worms. I've never seen them before and I've dug up at least two dozen this year.

Holes are eaten in buds too.

A brown snail ate my beautiful blue hydrangea (in a tall pot ) over night, last night! I am beside myself and have declared war. What has worked for you guys with snails besides picking them daily? In my rage this morning, I discovered my neighbor across th courtyard has them on her verbenas too! What will kill these buggers without harming animals and birds?

There are lots of snails in my garden now, too. All sizes - tiny, just hatched ones, regular medium-sized snails and huge ones that I could cook with garlic butter and parsley. They also eat geranium phaeum (I saw slime all over the remains of the plant) and phlox divaricata. I do not really like killing them - I already stepped on too many - so far I have only picked them and tossed them into the junipers, hoping they would stay there and not find their way back. I also thinned the groundcover so that it is not touching the clematis plants. If they show up near the clems again, I'll try beer traps - I do not think birds or other animals would drink it.

They also do not like coarse sand or gravel - makes them uncomfortable - so this might be an option for a potted plant - both in the pot and around it.

There are slug/snail baits that are safe for pets and wildlife.

Sluggo, Worry-Free, and Garden Safe are three of them.

Corry's is NOT pet/wildlife safe but you can put it inside plastic bottles laying on their sides to keep wildlife from getting to it. Not sure if this works, too much trouble, I buy the safe stuff.

Thanks for the tips! I tried to find Sluggo and Escar-Go at Home Depot today, but they didn't sell anything but pellets and I've read that the pellets don't work well. Will keep looking for it and maybe use the gravel trick, too! I did surround all my pots with salt last night and had no snail attack last night, but it isn't pretty.

Flowerchild,

Last year I visited Foxfire Gardens who's specialty is hosta. They use pellets and I saw very little slug damage on their thousands of hostas.

http://005300c.netsolhost.com/welcome/photos.html

Here is a link that might be useful: Slug magnet

Read somewhere that equal parts of vinegar and H2O and alittle murphy's soap or dish soap work, tried it and the slugs just melt,(kind of like sprinkling them with salt) but this has to be sprayed on daily,I have my gardens mulched with "organic" cedar,so i think this is just making a "happy haven" for them.My Clematis and Hosta seem to be the only 2 plants affected by slugs.The tuna cans(or similar small cans) with beer seems to work but too.

It sounds like you have a root weevil problem, try Beneficial Nematodes.