I bank onnative perennialslike purple coneflower and blackened - eyed Susans quite heavily in my landscape because they ’re so drought - tolerant and broadly very forgiving . They spread out nicely over time , support lots ofdifferent bees and butterflies , and attract sundry hoot with their seed heads in the late summer and fall .
Once I amalgamate in perennialcommon milkweedalong with annual zinnias and miscellaneous sunflowers , I ’m left with a solid , worry - liberal pollinator garden . At least that ’s how thingsusedto be .
latterly , I noticed several of my new purple coneflower school principal were wilt . At first glimpse , I reckon the estrus and dry stipulation that so many of us have been suffering through of late were bad enough to sham even my drought - kind coneflower . Then I looked more nearly . I could scantily think my eyes .
While several other coneflower heads on the same flora expect as chirpy as ever , their droopy counterparts seemed to have been trim back nearly all the way through and were now hanging by a thread . Worse still , when I stood back to take in the whole scene , I saw that several of my echinacea plant had been reduce to simple stems .
Had someone helped themselves to a rationalize - prime redolence ? Nope .
Looking down , I saw the cut flower heads shrink up ( or in the process of shriveling ) lying on the earth below . Then I mark that some of my sunflowers — at long last start to bloom , no less!—similarly had been snipped .
Weevil Woes
turn out a very small-scale insect create my big mickle . Known as the head - crop weevil , the head clipper weevil or , sometimes , the helianthus head word - clipping weevil , the insect is formally relegate asHaplorhynchites aeneus . And there ’s still a great deal we do n’t be intimate about it .
According tothe National Sunflower Association , “ Work on this insect has been very special due to its lack of economical injury . ”
But here ’s what wedoknow . These petite black creatures have long , beaklike mouthparts with which they can slice through vacuous - stem industrial plant like my violet coneflower and sunflowers . ( Head - nip off weevils are alsodrawn to important prairie plantssuch as prairie loading dock , compass industrial plant and prairie asters , among others . As such , you ’re most clever to find head - nip weevils in parts of the Midwest and Great Plains . However , their chain may be switch . )
So , what ’s behind all of the flower head - clip demolition ? Think of it as a harbinger to “ date nighttime . ” After the female and male chief - trot weevil married person , the distaff deposits her fertilize eggs in the damaged flower head . finally , the egg hatch , the weevil larva run through the quondam blossom head from which they emerge , and then they tunnel deep into the soil below . There , they ’ll overwinter until the next growing season when unexampled blooms have come on .
Facilitating this lifecycle seems awfully costly . surely , there is the lost personal delectation from so many wanting blooms .
But , to my mind , it ’s more than that . There ’s the resulting lost pollen and nectar that our foraging pollinators so urgently need . And then there are all of the hoot who have get to rely on the spend seed brain thatI’ll leave until well into late outpouring . If enough weevil survive year after yr , my wildlife garden wo n’t be able to suffer almost as many animals and good insects as it once did .
Protecting Plants
as luck would have it , we all have some recourse when it comes to controlling these unusual insect . If you have drumhead - prune weevils , first take a close look at any affected plants to endeavor to catch the perpetrator at workplace . Slicing through tough prow takes time and effort for these insects , so you just might get lucky .
In particular , examine the first in or two below your flower heads . You might notice the start of a sour , horizontal line or a serial publication of puncture marks girdling the stem . Then , you might see the dirt ball itself . If so , deal - pick and send packing it in a container of smarmy water . ( Just keep in mind that they can fly , so you ’d better be swift as you seize them ! )
You ’ll also need to piece up any dangle prime head you see , since these will finally play host to the next propagation of head clipper . Rather than compost these flower heads , roll them up and throw them away . ( Alternatively , you could solarize the peak head and then place them well away from any possible host plant . )
Finally , expend clean , astute garden shears to remove most of the root word from any previously crop flower head to facilitate works cylindrical lining and stimulate the production of newfangled rosiness .
