I have been away for 3 days and when I got back yesterday I went to the garden and only say 5 foot tall stems with no leaves on my Sweet Autumn Clematis! What the heck can eat all the leaves that quick? I got rid of the cucumber eating groundhog about a week ago and there is no sign of deer prints. Do squirrels eat clematis? The leaves were too high off the ground for rabbits unless I have a rare breed of rabbits that can climb vinyl fencing. Sob, sob, do you think it will come back?
aaah! where's my clematis?
Any catepillars around? I do not know if they eat clematis but they cleaned my passion vines of all their leaves.
Welome to the world of bunnies eating clematis. It's happening to me all summer.
Only on new plantings. Sweet young shoots. I have many clematis and this is the culprit.
They grow two to three feet, I come home from work one night and nothing left.
Hardware cloth, chicken wire about 18" high will stop it. The leaves should go through or cover the unsightly mess, but at least you will have a clematis like Sweet Autumn that should be 20-30 feet.
Rabbits foot luck to you.
Maybe it's the same thing that ate my late wisteria blossoms, the ones the Japanese Beetles didn't get last month! Totally stripped. :(
Deb
I don't know what it was, I suspected slugs so I put some DE around the roots. The leaves have since grown back and the vines are growing so I guess it must have been slugs or something equally creepy.
It was weird, the leaves were totally gone, no half chewed or holey ones left, just the main vine itself......
Unfortunately, if planted deeply it will come back. However, Sweet Autumn Clematis is a VERY invasive thug in our growing zone. Growers BEWARE!
Shirley
I've never had a problem with it being invasive and I'm lower south than you.....I've killed 3 of them off until this one took and I've never seen seedlings....maybe it's a different clematis we are talking about?
It's not buried very deeply either, there's only 1 main stem and it's holding on to the small root ball very tentatively.
It's wild here in Zone 4. Just wait until it matures and drops seeds.
Mine is wrapping itself around the house.
You can read all about this Clematis in PlantFiles. http://davesgarden.com/pf/go/683/
Hi everyone,
I just happened to post a similar thread, I apologize, Dragonfly, I did not
see yours until after I posted. Wondering now if maybe you have the same
problem I did, the Clematis Beetle.
http://davesgarden.com/forums/t/758892/
Ugh!
Karen Marie
Wuvie,
I have no idea what attacked it, I didn't see any beetles, all I saw were some slimiy droppings, then I went away for the weekend. When I got back only stems were left. However, the plants has all new leaves on it now and no signs of being attacked anymore. I don't know if it was the DE or just that the plant pest moved on. I do know the leaves on top were too high up for rabbits unless there are some really tall ones I haven't seen.
Deer would have chewed the leaves, they are not members of the clean plate club either, they only eat bites here and there or eat the whole plant not just the leaves.....