neighbor kids?

kids was my thought too! Never say any critter tear a zinnia off or leave anything they thought worth tearing off.

But critters surprise me! c

Damage like that around here almost always leads back to squirrels and apparently they have some taste for zinnias.

Just curious if they left the stems or pulled the heads to get to the stems? The linked post mentioned them liking the flowers, but before the peaches and pecans got ripe enough to finally capture their full attention, they were regularly pulling stolons of St. Augustine and other stems from the yard and eating them like kids (as well as older folks) eat sticks of licorice.

Here is a link that might be useful: Zinnias amp squirrel (blog post)

This post was edited by bostedo on Wed, Sep 11, 13 at 19:00

My zinnias have been getting picked the last few days also. We have plenty of rats and mice around here, but I've been suspecting human intervention. It looks like someone has a fancy for the yellow ones. They've taken enough for a huge bouquet. I've found a few heads on the ground, but mainly they are just gone.

I have loads of squirrels and loads of zinnias...never saw them go for zinnias....rose buds yes, passion fruit you betcha. Some critter with flat teeth took out my little patch of smallish sunflowers in 2 days. But not any zinnias.