I have severe problems with earwigs chewing holes in my Clematis. Likely that is what is getting yours too. It is very annoying.

Although earwigs are very common in relatively close proximiity to the ground, I am not sure if that is the issue in your case Violetta since you garden on a deck that is up off the ground. Kind of hard to determine the root cause of your issue. It could be the catepillars and earwigs could climb up the house and onto the deck. You could lay some traps to see what you might catch on the deck to help narrow down the possibilities.

DH took down an old wooden bird feeder yesterday that was up on the side of the shed. It was full of earwigs. Those suckers can climb.

May have ridden in from the nursery too since the Asao's were bought locally, recently.

Try lifting up some of your pots during the day, they like to hide underneath.

Hi Violetta: I'm in the Pac NW too and it seemed like overnight these little suckers chewed my rose leaves to bits! Very annoying! I had tiny green caterpillars last week that were skeletonizing all my rose leaves. Look on the underside of your Clem leaves and try to hand pick them off. That's where they were on my roses, the underneath of the leaves. I did that and on a cloudy day I gave everything a nice Neem Oil bath. They seem to be gone now. Haven't noticed any new damage.

Yes, I have a feeling the Asaos were infested when I brought them home.

What am I looking at in terms of "traps"? I'm new to all this... I don't even know what google search terms to use!

To trap earwigs roll up newspapers and dampen them. However, I caught one that way. I find many more when I pick up my pots that are on my deck.

I think that there is also one where you use old tuna cans and put vegetable oil in them. Give them someplace to hide during the day that you can them put in a trashbag or shake into a pail of water.

Google earwig traps and you will get a ton of info. Following is one.

Here is a link that might be useful: Earwig traps

Thanks Miguel. I haven't seen any critters around that look anything like that, but I'll lay some traps and see what turns up. Thanks!

Someone here mentioned putting soy sauce into a plastic disposable container (with cover) to which a few holes are cut into the sides, high enough on the container so about an inch of soy sauce can be added. Top off with a bit of vegetable oil. I caught a lot of earwigs in one of these traps in a short period of time.

That first picture looks like one of my smaller slugs.

Marie in ME

Violetta,

You can see earwigs at night time only. Grab a flashlight and examine your plants at night. You will not only kill your critters, but also entertain your neigbours (I did) :~)

I managed to keep them under control by spraying with soap water and by using my cat's food cans as traps.