It might be bunnies (and I'll chicken wire the perimeter tonight), but I suspect it's birds, as they're the ones I see by the planting every day. I started a "sunflower house" for the kids (okay, it's for me) and someone's eating the big leaves off the seedlings.
1. will a defoliated sunflower seedling come back?
2. is there a way to protect them? I've got a floating row cover on them, but that'll work maybe only a week more. Will the sunflowers be big enough to handle the onslaught then?
3. is there anything I can interplant there to keep the birds off? Besides my cat, I mean. I did put catnip there on the off chance he might feel some sense of ownership (he did not).
Beheaded sunflower seedlings ...
Oh, my, I had this problem last year, and never figured it out for certain. But they were eating the buds and blooms off of mature plants. I couldn't find anything, but started spraying them with a hose and it stopped, so maybe it could be aphids? And I think leafhoppers like the leaves, mine are looking awful already.
I think planting wormwood would deter aphids and bunnies:
http://www.ghorganics.com/page2.html
I don't think they will grow back, time to plant some more...
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