SOmething that loves to eat sunflowers down to the veins

[DigitalVinyl]

I planted four large sunflowers near my corn, squash, zucchini, Eggplant and canteloupe. THe sunflowers are the smallest plants, having seeded them late.

Something is eating the leaves and leaves just the central vein. They are completely gone, just a stick pokeing into the air for each leaf. The surrounding weeds, corn, and everything else is practically untouched. I see what could be a similar munch or two out of one zucchini leaf and another munch on a canteloupe leaf.

Is there a bug--worm or something that loves the leaves of the sunflowr becuase something has gone to town on all four of them to the exclusion of everything else. DiGiTAL ViNYL (no email) Zone 6b/7, Westchester Co, NY,

[Swyck]

Yeah, me too. I assume that its slugs or something like that.

I keep hearing about how easy they are to grow, but I rarely ever get any to the blooming stage before some mishap stops them from getting there.

Swyck

[Vox Humana]

That sound like the kind of damage I am seeing from Japanese Beetles which appeared about 10 days ago.

[GrampysGurl]

I have volunteers all over thanks to the birds and squirrels..... They grow with no care whatsoever, one of my favorite flowers. Colleen Zone 5 CT

[Swyck]

DOH!

Swyck

[DigitalVinyl]

I grew a few dwarfs in containers last year, but I wanted to try the really tall ones out in the ground. One of them isn't too bad. The others are naked. The tallest has the bud formed.

Interesting--the bug didn't eat the cotyledon leaves on any of them. Just the real leaves.

When I was digging here I saw a lot of a bug in the dirt--some kind of beetle. Whatever it is it definitely has a taste for these guys.

DiGiTAL ViNYL (no email) Zone 6b/7, Westchester Co, NY,