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Use These Tips To Identify What Animals Are Eating Your Plants
By CAROL BENTON
Mealybugs
If your plants are droopy and have lost their healthy vigor, mealybugs may be eating them. A coating on the leaves that resembles white mold is a sign of infestation.
When you turn the leaves over on your dying plants, you'll find mealybugs congregating on their undersides. Mealybugs can also live in the soil, feeding on the roots of a plant.
Beetles
With an abundance of different types, beetles feed on fruit trees, garden vegetables, and flowering ornamental plants.
Brown sections of grass can indicate a Japanese beetle infestation, which lives underground in your lawn. Flea beetles might infest your vegetable garden, as they love veggies.
Slugs
Because slugs love moist and cool environments, they can wreak havoc on your garden’s new seedlings in spring. They usually feast during nighttime hours.
Slugs can completely devour garden plants or chew leaves down to the stems. They leave behind large holes in leaves or create scalloped patterns by biting the leaf’s edges.
Cutworms
Cutworms, the larvae of moths, wrap their bodies around the central stem of the plant they’re eating. This cuts the stem off just above the soil line and kills the plant.
While cutworms typically hide during daylight hours, you may see them at the base of your plants at dusk or on cloudy days. They especially like new, tender growth.
Bagworms
Bagworms live in cocoons for the summer, which resemble brown bags that hang from plant branches. During that time, they feast off their host plants.
While they can feed on any type of plant, bagworms seem to prefer evergreen trees and shrubs. To end an infestation, pick off any cocoons you find and destroy them.