Sunday, April 26, 2009

What is eating my iris and clematis?

i have some iris in a raised-bed with some clematis next to them. And i noticed that something has been eating round holes on my clematis' buds and cutting off my iris flower stem and clematis young growths (they don't eat the iris flower but just cut off the stem)


Both happens about a foot up (or just below the top bud of the iris) from the soil line, below that, things are pretty much untouched. So I don't think it's slugs or snails.


What ate them?

What is eating my iris and clematis?
Slugs and snails will eat round holes in the leaves but they hardly ever eat the stem off. To check if it's slugs or snails go out there about 3 hours after dark with a flashlight and see if you see any. If they are not there by then, they are probably not your problem. It sounds like a small mammal to me. Rabbit, chipmunk, ground hog--something like that. Do you ever see any of those things around your place?
Reply:Sounds like rabbits to me.


1 comment:

  1. RABBITS! Around here they wait until my tulips have just bloomed and then eat the tender, thin stem just under the blossom. I usually have a nice crop of decapitated flowers each year! Dusting them with cayenne pepper usually discourages,... until it rains.

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