By Mizzle
Ayrshire,
Scotland 
Hi everyone, I'm very new to all this gardening malarkey and learning as I go! I'm struggling a bit with my salvias... I don't know what variety I've planted (it was 4 packs of plants for £10 at the garden centre but the descriptions and care instructions were a bit sparse!). Something seems to be feasting on them! It starts with chewed leaves then just the leaf skeleton is left and eventually the plant is eaten entirely so that just a stub of its stalk is left. This takes about a week. It focuses on one plant then moves onto the next. If the upload worked you'll see a photo below which I took before the whole thing was eaten.
I noticed some teensy tiny black specs on my chilli plants and begonias the other day which i suspected might be black fly. I checked the salvia and there were a few on them too so i sprayed everything with organic pesticide. That seemed to have worked for everything but the salvia!
I've looked on various discussion forums and websites but I can't find any suggestions for what's eating the whole plant! Any ideas?
Many thanks, Marie
4 May, 2014
Answers
My young salvias bought from B&Q are the same.
Slugs and snails appear to be the culprits.
4 May, 2014
I spread some grit around my daylilys which seems to deter them my salvias are a bit nibbled but not to bad and you could try oats :)
4 May, 2014
Slugs and snails do this to african marigolds here, so badly that I've given up trying to gorw them.
4 May, 2014
Thank you all for your responses. I just thought it was bizarre that they pick each plant in turn and not just whatever plant takes their fancy! I did find a snail in one of the patio pots yesterday so I've bought oranges for the flower bed and copper feet for the pots. Hopefully that'll give the remaining salvias a chance!
5 May, 2014
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Hi Mizzle
Could it be slugs or snails, I have noticed a lot more this year than last year?
4 May, 2014