I know earwigs have done that to mine every year! Blah!

earwigs and snails here!

Earwigs, maybe that's what's getting to mine, too. Ugh, there are thousands of those little suckers in my yard. They creep me out more than snails!

Any way to get rid of them?

I've had some of the same damage. I read somewhere about flea beetles, I think they were called. They are very tiny. I did see something that might have been these critters about a month or so ago. I also have more earwigs this year - yuck! I have no idea how to get rid of them without using a strong insecticide.

The damage hasn't stopped my HHs from blooming, though. I cut off most of the damaged leaves but left some along with the healthy ones. The leaves help to hold up the stalks in strong winds so I didn't want to remove too many. Still, they have looked a lot better in the past years.

Diana

Last year after the earwigs did such destruction to my clematis I purchased a crawling insect control that contains diatomaceous earth that which mechanically kills the insects by cutting into their bodies. Sounds lovely doesn't it...but it did help.

Annette, that tin can idea sounds intriguing. Thanks!

Japanese beetles turn my leaves to lace. They love to munch on the large leaves it seems. And slugs get what the JB's leave behind!

Tracy

M... I forgot to add, it helps if the newspaper is slightly damp. Earwigs love dampish hiding spots. My friend use to collect these every morning and feed them to his chickens. The chickens would pick up their skirts and run to him when they saw him heading their way.

Annette

Hey, dampened newspaper makes a lot more sense, so thanks for letting me know. Oh man, watching chickens eating the earwigs would be so darned satisfying! I wonder if I can get the ravens and seagulls to do that??

Thanks!

someone told me that the only thing that kills earwigs is seven ... i am using it, but still have approximately a million earwigs ... then again, maybe without the seven, i would have *several* million .... phyl

I'm putting my money on earwigs. They did a number on some of my plants, one verbascum in particular. The disgusting things were all nestled down deep in the sticky folds of the leaves. They don't seem to kill healthy plants, but they do make them unsightly for a time. I just left them be since I don't use pesticides. They seem to have run their course and now the verbascum is over four feet high and just beginning to bloom. You can hardly see any damage. All the other plants they attacked are doing just fine too. Sometimes just waiting out an attack is the best course of action, depending on the critter.

Steven

I don't know, Steven. Aside from the plant damage, these things are just creepy. It wouldn't be so bad if I'd see just one now and again, but when I see them it's in the hundreds. The first time was with a Calla Lily I'd just planted. Over night the thing croaked, so I pulled it up and hundreds of earwigs came up out of the hole. The second time I saw them was in an old hose. I picked it up and hundreds came pouring out.

Then last week, I went to turn my compost pile-- the one I'd been working at for the last six months and saw THOUSANDS (I'm sure it was thousands!!!) crawling around in there. There were so many, all I could see at first was this surface undulation effect. Eeuwwww!

I have a whole lotta creepy crawlies in (and under) my yard and most of the time it's a live and let live kind of deal... but this is too much. lol

For something like Sevin to be effective on earwigs, it seems like it would have to be coated on everything, all the time. I'm not really willing to do that, though, because I have tons of bees and hummingbirds here. For the earwigs, I'm liking the idea of the tin cans and damp newspaper. It makes tons of sense and I think it would even be more effective than chemicals.... but it's tempting.

Nancy

The japanese beetles are doing a number on my hollyhocks right now.

Ok, I went out this morning, and started looking under the leaves. What I found were these real tiny green worm-looking things. I have no clue, but they were not earwigs or slugs.

they are catepillars of some sort.
This is a good article, good info here.

Here is a link that might be useful: Hollyhock diseases and pests

c... sounds like a little hand picking of these little bug.... might solve your problem. There are organic ways to get rid of them but it harms the larvae of all butterflies.

A......

I went and got some Home Garden Fungicide, it's good for everything, not really toxic. I sprayed the Hollys, my Angel Trumpet which is getting eaten by spider mites, and my Black-Eyed Susans, which are also having their leaves eaten, then I watered with Miracle-Gro.
30 minutes later a storm came thru, so I'm hoping it didn't all get washed away, and I can wait 7 days to do it again.

This will be the 2nd yr for my plants that I started from seed. I was so happy to see how much they've grown this season. Last yr something ate the tops off before they could grow. Now, something, again, has eaten off one top of a plant that was bigger and ready to bloom. I will be sickened to see it happen to the other that is much bigger and ready to bloom. Does anyone know what it is and what to do? Hint: I think it (?) is getting up on my deck and eating from there with plant directly below. Thanks.

My hollyhocks have a big white bellied spider on them. I have just tried Sevin

Spiders don't damage plants. In general they will be dining on pests and are usually on your side. Leave it be.