petunias

something is eating holes in my petunia leaves--I cannot find worms or insects--any help?

Possibly snails or slugs--do you see little slimy trails anywhere on/near the plants?

It may be earwigs. Just spray diazanon on the soil in the area. I had them eating my dahlias. If it is earwigs or slugs, they both eat at night. If you go out there tonight, you will probably see them.

thanks to tips I discovered many slugs in the garden tonight--spent 2 hours removing them. Will my flowers recover? The leaves have been 20 percent eaten. What should I do for preventative action?

You can buy iron phosphate granules like Sluggo, or you can get copper and put that around the plants. There are also anti-slug products out there with metaldehyde as the active ingredient, I don't recommend those if you have pets because it's very toxic to them. The iron phosphate and the copper are fine with pets. I think the plants will be fine, the leaves will just look a bit ugly until you get some new growth in.

I use a product call Bug-Geta...you'll find it at your local home improvment center...this helps alot, but need to apply once every weeks...just in case... always read labels. but this stuff works great....those little rascals will never know what hit them...hope this helps

momo125.. what is dianazon, where can i get it and how does it work? i think does earwigs are killing my petunias. i know that slugs aint the problem anymore....i've gone out at night to see what i can see and have not had any luck...the other day i happened to lift one of the damaged plants out of the ground and in the roots i noticed there were very tiny ,almost microcospic, bugs (white) crawling in and out they seemed to be newborns...along with them there were millipedes, or though they seemed like millipedes, they had alot of legs....anyway this things are doing great damaged... at least thats what i think...the plants were very pretty and green with alot of bloom and all of a sudden thay started going limp. if you any idea as to what the problem might be please let me know..thanks :)

Don't think those are earwigs, earwigs don't have tons of legs, what distinguishes them is little pincers on their back end http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&q=earwig&gbv=2. I'm not sure what you have though. I know that nematodes can get into roots and cause problems but I think they're very small and you wouldn't see them. The white things are larvae of something, may or may not be related to the millipede-like things. Can you take a picture and post it?

Diazinon is a very common insecticide. It used to be available in Canada, but it is no longer available. Another one that you can use for a soil drench is Sevin, also called Carbaryl. I would just water the plants with a solution of this. Make sure the plants have been well watered first as this makes it easier for the chemical to get into the soil and not just sit on top. (capillary action)

Ecrane3 i will try and post a picture of those things....today i found what seemed to be a worm inside a petunia flower. the flower seemed to have lost some of its color and it looked sort of munched. i'm think that the worm had to do something with it. The worm was very small and brown and it was hard to spot because it was hidding in the very center of the flower. this is the first worm i've seen around. i know for sure its not slugs (90% sure at least) because i've gone in the middle of the night to look for them and can't find anything. i don't know what other thing might be causing the prob. thanks for reading this i'll see what pict. i can take and i'll try to post :) as for momo thanks for the tip. I have heard a lot about sevin but i've been afraid to use it. right now what i've tried so far is surekill by ortho, but i don't seem to have any results yet...will sevin be bad for the plants though? what do you mean by "soil drench"? is that like a special proccess? I'm new to the gardening hobby so any advice will be very appreciated... thanks!