Yes, the caterpillars are a disaster here. The guy on the radio said we've had a bumper crop of moths and butterflies. I've used BT, which has worked pretty well. The arboretum doesn't seem to have done anything and it's really bad. It's a good thing the hosta aren't close to the big exhibit they're doing.

This should make you feel better about yours.

bkay

{{gwi:997886}}

Well I can tell you that pillbugs/sowbugs LOVE wood chips. They're easy to find though, just start turning over any big rocks or big pieces of wood that you have around your garden beds. The canteloupe thing never worked for me. But if you take a brick or a piece of wood or something, and just lay it in a moist area of your bed, the pillbugs will congregate under there and you can easily catch them/kill them... they're not very fast moving.

Mine never seem to hurt my plants, and I have tons. I do, however, have millions of earwigs, which eat all the flowers in my yard -- hosta flowers, marigolds, dahlias, anything at all. My trap for them is a tuna can filled with olive oil, with a red solo cup inverted on top of it, with little holes cut for them to climb into the oil and drown.

I think it's always best to try to trap and kill the specific pest you're after, instead of widespread pesticides. I'm in 100% agreement with you. There's too many bugs I want to keep around and not kill 'em all.

I don't worry so much about the caterpillar damage, I know that they will soon go away and become adults. Which is one reason I don'tuse insecticides to kill them, I ultimately care more about the butterflies than I do the hostas. The plants will recover. You can't get back a butterfly if you kill the caterpillar.

Which is probably why the Arbotetum hasn't done anything about the caterpillar situation. Most arboretums and botanical gardens are all about the whole picture and not concerned with a few holes in leaves as long as the natural population isn't upset.

Did you know that there is a spider that feeds exclusively on sow bugs? I've seen it in action: odd looking little bright colored fellow: catches them in its jaws and sucks them dry. One of Nature's marvels.

Sandy

I'm not as nice as you guys. I also don't let caterpillars feed on my white passionflower, either. They'll kill it. They can use the other one, though.

I think the world could do with a few less cutworms and army worms. I've never heard there is a shortage.

Besides, BT only kills caterpillars. It won't harm bees or other types of insects.

bkay

Those caterpillars don't all turn out to be sweet little butterflies. Some are very bad moths and they can do major damage.

-Babka

Well, I have a lot of passion vine volunteers coming up this year, and even the shorties are being eaten before a foot high/long by the Gulf fritillary caterpillars. I see multiple adult butterflies every day, flitting around those vines about to lay eggs. They had a virus which decimated the population a couple of years ago, and I ordered some coccoons rom a spot in Florida. The USDA does not allow you to get non-natives so you'd have to find one in your (fairly) local area. Result is a bounty of the Gulf fritillary around here. A neighbor and I feel very proud of our efforts to protect the butterflies.

This might be the right spot to drop my picture of a bug I found on a Miracle Gro bag in the yard. It did not move when I picked it up, looked like a smart drive out of black plastic with white spots, a couple of fake eyes really big, and the bottom had no legs, just armour as do turtles when they pull in all their appendages. Well it was gone next morning. Something eat it? Did it play possum and walk or fly away? Do not know. It was a puzzle.

What is this?

No shortage of Gulf Fritillaries around here. They aren't really native to this area. They have spread here as people have added passionflowers to their landscapes. I used to only see them about the time schools started. Now, they're here as soon as it warms up. They love that white passionflower. It must be really tasty.

bkay

mocasinlanding, Try this for the bug...

Paul

Here is a link that might be useful: Alaus oculatus - Eyed Click Beetle

Wow! The link says the adults come to lights, so that is what must be hitting my window by the desk light every now and then!

It is the eyed click beetle alright. I'm glad I did not harm him/her/it. Its larva are predatory? Hmmm, I better read a little more about this guy. I now figure with it appearing the day after our huge rain, that it must have fallen out of a rotten hardwood crotch in the neighbor's water oak, because I found it in the shaded area where my hosta live, beneath this row of trees.

Thanks, Paul. :)

No need to get warm and fuzzy about saving butterflies by allowing caterpillars to eat your hostas. Hostas aren't host plants for any butterfly caterpillars. Caterpillars are host specific - they don't just eat any green leaves they can find. Cutworms on the other hand...

Bkay, how do you know that's damage from caterpillars rather than snails?

Deanna

A cutworm IS a caterpillar.

NO, I don't know for sure. The hosta in the photo isn't mine. I know for sure I have found 2 slugs this year, which I killed. They were on the ground, not on a hosta. What I have found eating my hosta are cutworms and yellow striped army worms (Spodoptera ornithogalli (Guen�e). Both are nocturnal. I'm assuming that the arboretum has similar bugs as they are about 5 miles from my house.

Like me, they don't have damage on all plants. However, the leaf texture doesn't seem to matter. They've been on the heavily textured leaves as well as thin ones. They devestated one stained glass, but the other one is not so heavily damaged.

I tried slug bait and nothing happened. The damage continued. I found the critters, looked them up and discovered they were caterpillars, not worms. Then I used Dipel (powdered BT) on the hosta that were moth eaten. It worked but I found that it does not wash off blue hosta. (my Blue Mouse Ears is powdered for the year.) I then sprayed with liquid BT. Most of the damage has stopped.

This is the first year I've had this problem. I assume it's because of the mild winter. It didn't get cold enough to kill the bugs.

bkay

These are mine. The damage is similar, just not as much of it.
{{gwi:988065}}

Note the slug bait in this pot, which did no good whatsoever.
{{gwi:951180}}

Okay, but butterfly caterpillars are host specific and none of them have hostas as a host plant.

Deanna

I went out and checked every hosta a few minutes ago with a flashlight, and found a cutworm. Didn't find anything else, not even a slug. I thought I'd find more than that since many of my hostas are getting damaged, and the slug bait isn't doing the trick. Do cutworms tend to come out later at night?

Deanna

Cutworms live in the top inch of the soil around your hosta. During the day, move your fingers around the top inch and they'll show up. (Very rewarding when you find one!) A soil insecticide with (carbryl or spinosad) will kill them.

-Babka

I don't know. I found some fairly early in the night (10 o'clock or so). I sprinkled with Dipel, which worked. It just won't wash off unless it's on a slick leaf. I then sprayed with the liquid with a hose end sprayer. I have a small amount of further damage, but not much. Same with the passonflowers.

bkay

BKay, the damage on the passion flowers most likely is a butterfly such as a fritillary. Not a cutworm. The Gulf fritillary is orange and black striped down its length, not orange/black banded, and not that soft green of cutworms.
They will decimate the leaves, but it won't kill the plant. The two have an ages old relationship--but I know how you feel about your white passion vine. I have hundreds of little volunteer passion vines coming up from last year's bloomers, so I'm not concerned about my big red passion vines. I just planted more of the edulis, and incarnata, so there will be plenty to go around. In my climate, probably yours too, the fritillary multiply all year long. Not seasonal. Which explains why I was seeing them this last winter.

Hope you win the battle for your white passiflora. How about setting up a potted passion vine with an obelisk in it for the butterflies? Might keep them from your white one.

BKay is that Ortho Bug Geta Plus I see in the pot? My understanding it has to be the "plus" to get the pill bugs. I use bottles and bottles of the stuff and I have have had good luck but it is early!

I hadn't had much luck with Ortho killing snails, so I tried Sluggo this spring. It wasn't until I found all the cutworm damage that I realized I had made a mistake not using the Bug-Geta Plus. My Hirao Majesty looks as bad as the hostas at the arboretum-part slug and part cutworm damage.

Yes, I'm aware of Gulf Fritillaries. They lay their eggs on passionflowers. My sister is a teacher and I've taken bug infested passionflowers to her class every fall. One of the questions on the TAKS test (no child left behind test) was about the life cycle of the butterfly. Once they saw the eggs, caterpillars and the butterflies, they never forgot it. The test had only about 40 questions, so one was very important.

Gulf Fritillaries are not native to this area. I've allowed them to kill 3 Constance Elliotts and I'm not willing to give them another one. They will even eat the green off the stems. Yes, I've heard the "one for the butterflies, one for you", but they will take both if they're Constance Elliotts. Yes, I know I'm mean and not very earth friendly, but enough is enough. ANd BT works on the cut worms and on the gulf fritillaries.

bkay

Update on the cypress mulch experiment: we got home this afternoon and I checked the hostas that had the pillbug problem, where I put the cypress mulch down There were just a few pillbugs, not the hundreds that were present earlier. The damage seems to have mostly stopped. Going to check again in a few days to be sure.

Still don't see any pillbugs on hostas that previously were mulched with woodchips. The damage was only on ones that had no mulch or were mulched with compost and shredded leaves.

As for the caterpillar damage, most of it seems to have stopped too. I think they have mostly moved on to pupate, hoping cutworm season is over for now. Going to do a patrol this evening tho. We sem to have had a major outbreak of them here this year. Last year it was the walnut moth. Next year, who knows!

Sandy

You're right mosswitch. To quote the renown philosopher, Roseanne Rosannadanna, "It's always something--if it ain't one thing, it's another."

bkay

Sandy, am I understanding you correctly, that you had a pillbug problem and you then put down cypress mulch and the problem sort of went away? So using cypress mulch will help reduce the pill bug population and thus damage to my hosta?

I haven't seen many pillbugs here, but I've seen lots of those multi-legged things with pinchers on their rear end. Have no idea what they are. Mostly beneath pots when I pick up a pot of hosta.

I know how you all feel. I am having the same problem here in SC Kansas. The damage to my hostas is not quite as extenssive as others who posted here, but I'm glad I'm not alone.

It's been a week since I mulched my hostas with cypress mulch, to see if the pillbugs would go away. The experiment seems to have been a success, there are almost no pillbugs or sowbugs around the hostas now and no new damage.
Woohoo!

Sandy