This is what they did to one hosta overnight. The nibbled edges of the stem and leaves is pillbug damage. They can reduce stems and leaves to nothing in a short while.

Sandy

And this is what is left of a Lakeside Dragonfly when I noticed what was happening. Pillbugs. In a couple of weeks. This was a nice plant, hope I can save it.

Sandy

I didn't realize pill bugs would do that sort of damage...

Now I'm curious:

What do the "pot top collars" look like? Any pics of them in place? Are the pot top collars something you have created out of recyclables or is it a store bought item? Will they work for other bug pests?

Thanks,
Deb

You are looking at one in that last picture, that I put on this morning--locking the barn door after the horse was gone, lol--just cut the tops off the pots that the plants came in and put them over the plants sinking them into the ground about an inch. Seems to keep the nasties out. Probably not slugs but cutworms as well as pillbugs.

So definitely recycled pots. After the plants get bigger you don't even notice the "collars".

Sandy

It's still unconceivable that pillbugs eat hostas. I have never even seen them in my garden. They only sit under my watering cans,which are way up under my carport,if I see one! Phil

I see Sandy, very interesting! Cut worms have been a problem for my tender hosta in the past.Thanks for the tip on a simple preventive idea.

Now I'm off to see about getting that horse locked in first...
:-)

Deb

Wish you were here to see it in person, Phil. Would sure make a believer out of you.

Would a simple spray of insecticide have killed those bugs?

Nope. Insecticide has no effect on them, and I garden primarily without chemicals, anyway. Diatomaceous earth works somewhat but they are not insects, besides; they are crustaceans. We just call them bugs because they look like bugs.

Sandy

This post was edited by mosswitch on Sun, Jun 16, 13 at 22:30

I had a similar situation a few years ago. Something attacked some Wide Brim in a planter box. It was the consensus of the folks then that it was the pill bugs.

Now that I've had a cut worm infestation, I suspect it was cut worms previously. I still have pill bugs everywhere and have had no more damage from them.

It's kind of a strange deal. It sure looks like the pill bugs are the culprit when you're watching it. It just doesn't all add up to a neat little package. It could be anything.

bk

They can only survive in damp conditions. A day in the sun might kill them off or get rid of most if not all of them.

They do eat vegetation, mostly rotting.

Jon

Part of the problem is, there is no day in the sun. This is shade. And they survived the drought last summer and were still active in August, even where the garden was not watered. And they do eat vegetation, they love hostas. And lettuce, cabbage, and other leafy veggies.

It is no "other" culprit. In large numbers, which they are, they do a lot of damage to living plants. They do eat compost and rotting vegetation, but make no mistake, if living vegetation is available in the middle of their compost, they will eat it also.

You who don't have a problem with them and doubt that anybody else does, have never had experience with them in large, destructive numbers and can't speak for someone who does. I do know what I am talking about and I do know what I see, and I see them in thousands on a plant and see the damage they are doing. I have watched them eating plant tissue. I also see that when I stop them from having access to a plant, the damage ceases. It is NOT slug damage or any insect. I know the difference.

They ate the growing tips off young emerging hostas, and they will eat away at the bases of stems of even mature plants until the leaves die. They will eat roots. They will eat crowns. Even in fairly dry conditions, they will be under the top layer of compost, munching away, and if a hosta happens to be in their way, they will cover it and it will be lunch too. They are herbivores, and whether the plants are dead or alive, they are non-selective. and they don't wait until it's dead before eating it.

If you had seen them in person and the destruction they cause, you would never doubt it again. Lucky you, if you haven't had the pleasure.

Sandy

Wow, thousands? That would almost be scary.

Something really decimated my Wide Brim. Anywhere a leaf touched the ground, it was eaten. Also, the stems were stripped. I used BT, and sevin and it didn't phase them. I finally moved what was left of the Wide Brim to pots. Then, they got nematodes. So they ended up in the trash anyway.

Don, they don't have to have damp conditions. They seem to thrive anywhere and everywhere, at least here.

Hope you find a good solution, Sandy.

bk

When it gets hot and dry and sunny, they go under the top layer of mulch, or under a rock, so they don't die. They just hide. I did see on my hosta patrol this morning that there are none inside the plant collars, and hundreds outside in the mulch. They don't seem interested in crossing a barrier.

I don't know how many of you grew up in the 1950's era and had parents who gardened like I did, but the way we kept cutworms off the tomato plants was to cut a strip of tar paper about 4" wide, staple it together in a circle and put it around the tomato plant, stuck in the ground about an inch. It was very effective! So plant collars for bugs are really nothing new. Come to think of it, I have part of a roll of tar paper left over from a roofing job.....a strip of shingle would work, too.

I did read that cornmeal will kill pill and sowbugs, they eat it, it stops up their system and they die. I'm thinking that mixing diatomaceous earth with cornmeal might be something to try, I'm going to do that.

Soon as it quits raining.

Sandy

Let us know about your experimenting with cornmeal, Sandy, I have two bins with almost completely composted fall leaves and this springs grass clippings, and they have a lot of pillbugs in them feeding on the decaying matter. I figured that they help the compost with their waste. I have never had a hosta garden without them, but this spring they seem more abundant. It may be recovery after last years weather.

I wonder if I should be putting a screening section along side the 3 bin composter with screen over the top to dry out the finished compost, and a removable plank at the bottom to shovel out the screened compost. The screening should separate the adult pillbugs if the compost was screened just before applying it to the garden.

By the way Sandy, have you ever seen fossils of their ancesters. Trilobites, I believe they are called, and they were HUGE. One of them could devour an adult Empress Wu in two bites.

Theresa

Theresa, I think they are valuable in the compost pile helping to break things down. And in the woods to help break down leaves, etc, it is when they are in so many numbers that they attack the plants also that they are a problem, and it seems to be when a rich compost is applied that it gets worse. They make no distinction between live and dead organic matter. The last two years have been horrible with them. They even went after my leather gloves I accidently left on the potting bench!

Yes I have seen trilobites, I have a few of them in my rock collection but not any that big! The biggest of mine are only about 3" long. I didn't know they could get so huge!

Sandy

Update on the cornmeal & diatomaceous earth experiment: it seems to be effective, the pillbug popluation around my hostas in the cottonbur compost went down 97% after I applied it within 3 days. They are still active where I didn't use it, as a control to see if it would make a difference. It definitely seems to!

Sandy

This is my "control" plant with no cornmeal. Look at them! Yeeks!

Sandy

Two feet away, this young Blue Mouse Ears with a ring of cornmeal, has no pillbugs.

I deliberately did not use my plant collars in this bed as I wanted to see now effective just the cornmeal/diatomaceous earth alone would be.

Whatcha think?

Sandy

Impressive!
What ratio of cornmeal to DE did you use?

Deb

Heck, Deb, I dunno. I just poured some cornmeal in a bowl, and stirred some DE in it. Probably about 2 pts cornmeal to 1 pt DE. Haha I'm not that accurate a scientist!

I do know the damage to my plants has stopped.

Sandy

peeps here in the various forums . .really thing DE is magic.. i swear .. 99% of the said uses are old witches tails ... tales.. whatever....

i could put these bugs on a 120 degree blacktop.. and they will walk across it and disappear.. i dont know why sharp little granules would bother them .. but hey.. you never learn anything new w/out trying ... what do i know ...

now.. i didnt read all the above... but did these come IN THE BAG.... or attracted after you dumped an OLD BAG ...

bags of anything.. can be left in the sun.. for most of august.. and they will near self sterilize.. especially the further south you go.. heat build up all all ...

now.. i dont care about DE and winging it.. but i will yell the rest... IF YOU ARE USING CHEMICALS.. DO NOT WING IT.. be precise.. read all instructions.. and actually use a product labeled for the use ...

in another forum.. i just caught someone using an INSECTICIDE for what she thought was a fungus.. but was in fact an untreatable bacterial problem.. i hope you all realize that that simply amounts to pollution ....

ken

Br u-haha, very interesting ... I like it!

Last year I sprinkled DE around mini hosta for cut worms and it seemed to stop 'em.

Never had a run in with that sort of damage and amount of pill bugs. If I do tho, I'll be armed with your good info to combat the suckers.

Thanks,
Deb

Ken, they were new, unopened bags. No bugs in them, the bugs were in the garden and attracted to the new tasty compost and the plants in the middle of it were eaten in the course of the events. Collateral damage, you might say.

DE is silicon dioxide, it causes insects to dry out and die by absorbing the oils and fats from the cuticle of the insect's exoskeleton. Its sharp edges are abrasive, speeding up the process. It is non-toxic, environentally friendly, not an insecticide or pesticide, has no dosage level, and there is even a food-grade DE that is used as an anti-caking ingredient in feeds and a clarifier in beer. You wouldn't
want to go inhaling a lot of it or getting it into your eyes due to its abrasive nature but other than that it won't hurt you.

As far as the cornmeal, I have tried it without the DE and it seems to work just as well to eliminate the pillbugs, they eat it, it stops them up, and they die. The DE would help with cutworms too tho which is why I put it in there.

Sandy

The pill bug dilemma...I have them too, although not the "armies" poor Sandy does. They DEVOUR anything and everything!!!! They chewed Blue Mouse Ears flower buds before they opened last year, now they are trying to eat my gaillardia but I dug and squished ruthlessly, and the way I dealt with them last year was by treating them to a snack-the beige pellets used to get rid of slugs...sorry, name of product escaped my memory...I found dead pill bugs after they ingested this 'treat'. Have to get more...you have to be sneaky and hide these pellets under wood, or cloth, or paper, anything that covers it. I do remember that the product should be moistened.

Any product that reduces the colonies of pill bugs is my choice of dealing with these chewers.

Glad this topic came up, thanks.

I beg to differ with Jon...pill bugs love ANY environment, dry, wet, hot, whatever...they even survive drowning!!!

Thanks for the results of your experiment. Keep up the good work, Sandy!

Don B.

Thanks, Don, Deb, everybody, I just hope it helps somebody with the same problem. Glad to know I am not alone!

I should add--I put cornmeal around the hosta that was surrounded by pillbugs in that last picture, and by afternoon there were just a few still milling around. Don't know if it was because it got hot today or it was the cornmeal, but something got rid of them. Still keeping a close eye on all of them.

Sandy

update, went slug hunting tonight and only found 4 slugs, no cutworms, but lots of leaf damage. I think they were all cutworm damage and they may have all gone by now, but did find more pillbugs eating away. They were covering a Barbara Ann, and a couple of others, which are now surrounded by cornmeal. I'll be watching that situation too.

Jeez I hate all these hosta challenges! Makes me want to move to the frozen north where they don't seem to have these problems!

Sandy