are they eating the leaf.. or leaving a slime trail???

do they look like a snail .. i cant focus on the pic ...

and i dont get the herding mentality ... why they are all going in precisely the same pattern of movement.... was the leaf hanging differently than in the pic???

ken

No signs of them eating the leaves. They are so tiny. If they are snails, I have never seen any like this before.

Have you applied mixed hardwood mulch fairly recently? Because those look like the spore packet (called peridiole) and attached funicular tube of an artillery fungus species. That they appear to be going in the same direction because these things often follow the sun (or reflected sun) .

If not mulch, might there be an old wooden structure of some kind nearby?

Anyhow, that's my theory! :-)

Oh....I see that you have some hardwood chips!

The mulch has been there since the fall I think. Our house is newly built and there is construction going on around us. Does that have anything to do with this?

Should I buy a Fungicide? My local nursery suggested an insecticide.

No fungicide.
The packets rhizo suggested are just one of those things.
Don't damage plants but increase gardener stress level.

jean, lol..."increase gardener stress level."

Chelsey, I should have given you further information...I apologize. Artillery fungi are not harmful to plants or anything else. They are simply beneficial decomposers of dead, moist wood. The only problem they cause is that those sticky peridioles often find themselves on house siding and vehicles where are can ruin paint and refuse to be removed.

By the way, I enlarged your picture and can easily see the little culprits immediately below your geranium, in the sunlight at the center bottom of the frame.

Please do the local environment a favor and inform the staff at your local garden center. No one needs to be recommending needless applications of insecticides or fungicides.

Thank you so much for the information!