Perennials: What's bugging the echinacea?, 1 by spartacusaby

spartacusaby wrote:
Every year when they are first planted or break dormancy, my echinacea are discovered by the wild rabbits. If I remember to spray them promptly with Ropel and scatter bloodmeal around them, they begin to grow. Then the foliage is attacked by something that leaves holes in the foliage. The damage doesn't look like that on the slugs' favorite plants between rounds of Sluggo (e.g. ligularia, which the slugs purely love). Doesn't seem to matter which echinacea. Newer cultivars, species E. purpurea, you name it - they all get the same motheaten appearance. Can anyone tell me what causes this type of damage, and what if anything I can do that won't harm the beneficial insects? Any help would be greatly appreciated, and thanks!

I suppose I should simply give up on growing echies, but the bees and butterflies and I love them; and I'm a Taurus and thus stubborn to a fault...

I'll post several shots of damaged foliage.