Re: eating my hollyhocks
- Subject: Re: eating my hollyhocks
- From: M* F*
- Date: Sat, 11 Aug 2001 21:35:57 -1000
If it is jagged (sort of saw toothed)on the edges. It may be Fuller's rose
beetle. It is a flightless weevil that has a very short blunt snout. It
is a fairly common and cosmopolitan pest with a very wide host range. There
are often only a few and checking the plant at night (via a flashlight) will
easily illuminate this mystery.
MTF
----- Original Message -----
From: "Richard Starkeson" <johnsaia@dnai.com>
To: <medit-plants@ucdavis.edu>
Sent: Saturday, August 11, 2001 8:33 PM
Subject: Re: eating my hollyhocks
> Usually the leaf-cutter bees cut a rather round (almost half circle) in
the leaf
> edge. They are relatively harmless, in that they don't really harm the
plant.
> Consider that, with the almost complete extinction of italian honey bees
here,
> the native bees are doing most of the pollination of all flowers. The
leaf
> cutters also like roses a lot. If the munched portion looks very jagged,
and is
> not half-circle like in shape, it is probably some sort of weevil or other
pest
> doing its dirty work at night.
>
> barbara sargent wrote:
>
> > >Up here near Tilden Park the leaves of my Callas have notches cut out
all
> > >along the edges, something that I don't remember ever seeing before.
> > >However, something else I've never seen in the garden before --small
bright
> > >green grasshoppers--have also turned up this year. So far I haven't
seen one
> > >actually eating a leaf, but it wouldn't surprise me to learn that
there's a
> > >correlation.
> > >
> > >Anyone else having problems?
> > >
> > >Cecile -also in Berkeley
> > >
> > >barbara sargent wrote:
> > >
> > >> My wonderful yellow perennial hollyhock has finally bloomed after
three
> > >> years; but the flowers are being chewed around the edges. I thought
the
> > >> culprit might be some kind of butterfly larvae so I sprayed with BT.
This
> > >> *seemed* to slow it down a bit but I'm not really sure.
> > >>
> > >> Does anyone have an idea of what other pest might be doing the
damage?
> > >>
> > >> Barbara - in Berkeley
> >
> > Cecile,
> >
> > I saw the culprit in the act. It's a bee--perhaps a leafcutter bee. I
saw
> > it actually cutting a round notch on the edge of a hollyhock petal. Then
it
> > held it in it's mouth (?) and flew away with it.
> >
> > Now the question is--how to repel these bees? I like to encourage bees
in
> > general but the hollyhocks really look awful with notches cut out around
> > the edges of every last one. And, interestingly, it's only the yellow
> > hollyhock which they seem to like.
> >
> > Barbara - in the Berkeley flatlands
