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Hi Everyone! I am new to this forum so I do hope that all of you intelligent veteran gardeners can help me out!!
My pansies were looking rather pitiful and I decided to take a closer look. Upon inspection I found a little grayish green worm (almost a grass green) about 1cm long feasting on my pansies. It has a little black head as well. Not just one per plant, but 5-10+. They are mainly around the base of the plant and are devouring only the leaves thus far. Not the blooms, stems etc.(yet!) They are in a flowerbed with other annuals and perrenials (marigolds, phlox, shasta daisies, dusty miller, dianthus etc) and only my pansies are the victims of these green goblins. I also found them in one of my large pots (a large washtub) and they are only chompin gon my pansies as well, not the geraniums, bacopa, lobelia, osteospermum, etc.
These gobblers almost look like a cutworm, but don't have that greasy appearance that cutworms usually have (or any that I have seen before in my garden).
Upon discovery, I did hand pick and squish them, but there are still more where the original ones came from. Could anyone possibly tell me what they might be and how to control them. I just solved a terrible slug infestation and now I have more creepy crawlies!!
Thank you so much for your help in advance. I so much appreciate it. Please save the Pansies!!
Plants: 18 | From: Alberta, Canada | Registered: Jul 2006
| Seeded: 68.149.245.222
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the best way to ID them is to rear them out to adults.. then they are a lot easier to ID. Just collect some caterpillars and put them in a jar and feed them pansy leaves and wait.
* * * * The Buglady Suzanne Wainwright-Evans, www.bugladyconsulting.com Educating the world... one bug at a time Plants: 435 | From: PA | Registered: Jan 2004
| Seeded: 205.188.116.9
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