Not the greatest pic but its taken with my phone...

The ants are probably farming aphids. Looks like something is inside the leaves munching, and also possibly a caterpillar (might be hiding under a leaf) or something like grasshopper that's much more mobile. Your poor plant is like wild kingdom.

I never thought of birds, probably because they are only maybe 10 inches tall. I suppose that could be it. Maybe ill pick up some pin wheels...

Do you think gently spraying them with water would remove the insects that have made my poor sunflowers there home? I hope they make it to flower, this is my first and probably last attempt at growing them. My whole first batch were demolished by squirrels =(

If you can see something on there, it shouldn't be too hard to remove. Good attitude though, sunflowers aren't prized for their leaves. As long as it can grow as fast or faster than it's being munched, you'll get a flower. Squirrels, the most prolific and busy gardeners on the planet, have some strange ideas! With sunflower seeds, I toss them out there almost every year. Sometimes I get flowers, sometimes not. For $1, it's worth the gamble, IMHO.

I think they are just about done for =(

And this is on a lillie about 10ft away. Not sure if its related but im still kind of bummed.

Last pic of the damage =\
Some nasty white "fuzz" for lack of a bettee word has appeared on top. There was nothing there yesterday

Looking back over your pics... plants are leaning, sunflower is staked, grass is very sparse at the base, always shown in shadow, starting to wonder about sufficient sunlight in general for these plants. Which side of the fence are they on? Insufficient light can make plants weak and easy prey for pests.

What is going on at the base? Usually it's either grass or a bed. Once the space(s) is defined, mulch can be added to bed to moderate moisture levels, and eventually decomposing to add tilth and humus to the soil.

Also, hard to imagine anywhere's actually dry right now, but in the top pic the ground looks dry, which can also be deceiving in person or in pic. What's the moisture situation?

If that was my lily, if possible, I'd dig it up, chop off everything above the bulb, put it in a spot of more sun.

Where the sunflowers are used to be a full blown flower bed with hostas. I moved all of those and have been trying to grow grass along the fence. As for the lily, I dont think thats actually what it is. Thats what my mother always called them. They get these seeds along the stalk and they just popped up where you see them along the side of the house. The sunflowers get full sun pretty much all day. The others not so much, they are under a tree.

Dani, tiger lilies (Lilium lancifolium or Lilium tigrinium?) ... forms tiny (almost seed-like) bulbils that develop along the length of the plant axils, where the leaves join the stem.

Would you believe that all this time I thought those were seeds. Wow. I feel kind of dumb! Haha.
Alright Ive decided to leave the sunflowers where they are, hopefully we get a least a few flowers! And Im moving the lilys. I was hoping those would make it to flower but now most of them have that icky white stuff all over them.
Hopefully ill have better luck next year.
Thanks for the advice!

Yeah, gardening's always a gamble. The longer you do it, the more different plants you should have. So when/if something goes wrong with one, it's not such a big deal since there are so many others doing well. Not as great to look at from a distance, but a bed of many different plants is much more 'safe' than large monocultures of single plants. Just something to consider while dreaming up next year's schemes.

I know this was a while back but just wanted to let you all know the lillies made it to bloom!
The sunflowers are eh so so. I have a better spot picked out for nect year =)

Wow, it sure did! That poor wild kingdom plant will not be deterred from its' mission. Thanks for the inspiring update, I wouldn't have thought it possible.

Anyone planning/dreaming about next years' garden in July is confirmed, addicted.

it is the same damage I have on my sunflowers, it is from a brown beetle. they are coming out at night and chewing the leaves. It is the May beetles or June bugs are ý to 5/8 inches long, and reddish brown. the ants are "farming" a type of leaf hopper and aphids. the damage on my sunflowers have been kept low by me going out each night and removing as many of the beetles as I can and I also have a large amount of spiders both ones that I put there and others that moved in own their own to help control the beetles. I don't like to use bug sprays because the birds will be getting the seeds in the spring and because the beetles come out at night, unless you get a spray that stays on the leaf and will kill them as they eat, any direct contact killing spray will be dried and have no effect and a systemic killer will make the plant and the seed toxic which will kill the beetles but the seeds could not be given to the birds or eaten by humans.

Yesterday my young sunflower plants were fine. Leaves were full and healthy. Today I went out to see only the center stalk and the side stalks of the leaves but not one leaf is left. Any ideas as to what ate the leaves? Thank you in advance for any help.

It's not birds because it's happening to mine in a sealed greenhouse!

I think it's ants or something. I have moved mine outside about 6 ft away and it's stopped. My green house is half wood half glass so slugs ants an just about anything tiny can hide around the moist floor and come out at night

hi everyone...

sadly, I have the same problem... I can actually see the "brown beatle" when I dig into the soil a bit... so, after panicked quick research (that's how I got to this page} I'm going to try a homemade remedy that I found here:

http://homeguides.sfgate.com/onion-garlic-bug-spray-73217.html

( Ill try the onion/garlic and ill add the mint( and cayenne pepper to make the concoction "atomic" > YES! IM GOING ALL OUT)

we shall see what happens but I intend to save my sunflowers...

Caterpillars maybe. Definitely leafminers though. Possible spider mites too.

It looks like 2 different kinds of damage.The sunflower leaves look ripped up which would probably be something big enough to do it like a bird or animal.The lillies are being munched on by something smaller like earwigs or slugs.Sunflowers are like complete ecosystems themselves drawing in all sorts of insects.why not marvel at all the life they contain instead of wishing they were sanitized,host less and lonely.A chicken wire fence around the sunflowers would take care of that problem.The lilies,there are environmentally safe products for slug control,but if earwigs,I'm not sure if there are safe products to repel bugs.I used to think neem oil was ok,but I have found out it can mess up a lot of good bugs like butterflies so do not use that.

I sprayed bT. Let you know