What IS it?!

I have some obvious insect damage but I'm not sure what is doing it. I have pretty much ruled out slugs since for one, I put down bait every two weeks, and two, only ONE hosta out of 8 had any damage which was slight, and only ONE of my 8 brugs all in a row had damage. But that brug was CHEWED UP! The damage is all over the yard, but not every plant was hit. Some canendula got hit, that brug was real bad, and one other brug in a different bed had slight damage. The hosta had two small holes right through the center- no leave edge damage. Most of them have holes in the middle and the really badly chewed ones are eaten to the edge of the leaf but it doesn't look like it started at the edge, if that makes sense. My trumpet vine had a few leaves with holes, but they were all leaves at the very top. No damage near the bottom of any of these plants. Another reason I ruled out slugs. I have not seen any slugs or snails either. There are no traces of bugs either. No secretions, webbing or any other of the nastiness they leave. Do discoloration whatsoever. And yes, I did look UNDER the leaves and used a magnifiying glass. Nada! So any clues as to what this could be and what I can do to get rid of them? I know Paul James would say "do nothing" but I can't stand it! :)

Thanks for your help.

Jamie

Hi Jamie, can you post a picture? It sounds to me like it might be tarnished plant bug or four lined plant bug. If it is, good luck. those little buggers are hard to get rid of. They leave little perfectly round holes on foliage, and won't kill the plant, but will make it look pretty sorry. They also move really fast, so are hard to spot. I had a really bad infestation of 4 lined plant bug last year, and am crossing my fingers it doesn't re-occur this year. Good luck.

Lee

Lee,

I will take a picture of my hosta leaf today when I get home. I plucked all the other damaged leaves off and tossed them yesterday before I thought to post here about it. The hosta only has 2 leaves right now so I didn't want to pull it off. But that's what it is on most of them- a nice, perfectly round hole in the center of the leaf.

Anyway, I'll post a few pics. Sure hope your bugs don't come back!

Here are the pictures- this is a brug it got...

And another brug far away from this one...

On the trumpet vine leaves- just a few way up top

The hosta..

Last but not least, the verbascum got chewed on a bit too