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Something is eating my purple coneflowers!

10 years ago

Help!
Something is eating the leaves of my Echinacea (purple coneflowers)! I read it may be a Japanese beetle, so I've been spraying the leaves with soapy water. My Helenium & Joe Pye weed are getting nibbled as well. Any suggestions?
Also - I don't think my purple coneflowers get enough sun where they are - against a privacy fence & pretty consistent part-sun conditions. I want to move them but I don't have a place created for them yet. Will it be ok to leave them where they are for this year? My hope is that they may not bloom as profusely but will still live until I can move them next spring?
Thanks!

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Comments (4)

Iris GW
10 years ago
All these plants are host plants for something. It may be Japanese beetles but it might just be the critter that is designed to munch on them.

Yes, you can leave them another year until you're ready to move them.
allthingsnew
Original Author
10 years ago
"Host plants"? As in the plant itself is designed for a bug/critter? It makes sense, seeing as I was hoping to create a place that attracts butterflies, but I never thought of them as "host plants." Could you please expound? And does this mean I will have foliage eaten from these plants regardless of where I plant them?
Thanks for the info!
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Thank you for the info., Runmede. I've brought a few cats indoors and they are eating great. Their behavior is interesting. Each time I go back to the plant for more leaves, the second I touch a leaf every cat on the plant turns loose and falls to the ground. I've never experienced this with swallowtail or monarch cats. Sure, they will drop off if disturbed enough, but I wonder why they don't drop off at the slightest disturbance. Seems like more of them would survive. Dana
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Iris GW
10 years ago
Yes, butterfly gardening has two parts:

- plants that provide them nectar
- plants that they want to lay their eggs on which then turn into caterpillars and eat the plants

Different butterflies have different hosts. Probably the most well known one is the Monarch butterfly and the milkweeds. Monarchs only lay eggs on plants in the milkweed family.

According to the link below, the Silvery Checkerspot uses purple coneflower (Echinacea purpurea) as a host plant.

Here is a link that might be useful: Info
allthingsnew
Original Author
10 years ago
Thank you so much for the info & the link!

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