You win......

Jelinda ~ Amdro ant stakes work well... Jelly stuff inside you stir up with a toothpick then stick it near the colony. They take the stuff home and it kills them. I love ants, but not when they move inside!

And here's a pic of an insect favorite of mine, the praying mantis. They are all just now hatching out of their cocoon. Ok, well it's a little blurry and very tiny...

Patty that is such a sweet baby. I love the praying mantis.

I agree! Love praying mantis! And such a little guy! Very cute!!

I've never seen such a tiny one!

The strange thing is now i rarely see hills of ants.They are using the compost in my beds and living in them.They only seem to lay eggs under the rocks.I have noticed where i see worm castings poking up through the pea gravel,there's more ants.The worms are good they save me from buying fertilizer and replenish the soil but ants will kill them fast.The soil drains fast enough i don't even notice hills around the beds after a rain,as we usually do in other places.
Lynn,you are correct i wear gloves but them little suckers will get in them before you know your in ants.I have them in 2 beds that have the same forest compost.I think it started with termites in the rotting wood,i put the compost out and ants found the termites then decided not to leave!!

Bummer Jojoe!

I'm so upset, the rain just stopped,it has been raining off & on for the last 3 days sometimes very hard & other times just steady or it would stop for an hour or so now & then. I went outside to check my plants & everything is doing so good.Then i went to the newest bed that i managed to get planted but didn't get any rock in before the rains started.This is also the bed the squirrels,birds & something else has been messing with.
When i say something else,we have 3 fawn's that play & eat in the yard at night,morning & right before dark.We have had so much fun watching them.We even seen them get scared late one evening when a loud thunderstorm started.They jumped straight up in the air & took off running until they were in a thicket of tree's.
This last bed was awful.Pieces of 'Angelina' pulled off the plants laying every where,missing semp's,semp's turned upside down.The semp's i have that put out so many babies on long stolon's,the babies had been pulled off & just dropped in the bed.It was like something just had fun pulling them off.These semp had 8-12 babies on long stolons,now there are only a few left. here's 2 of these plants before the critters got to them!! :smily:

It rained so hard at times that Day Lilies,Rose Campion,Penstemon all have the long stems w/blooms on them are laying down.My 'Penstemon' has had limb's laying down for a while.I hope these will stand back up.I may have to tie the 'Penstemon' it's been laying down for awhile.

I must hurry & put some rock in this bed the baby semps in it have all rooted on their sides or is this something that works out ok.Will they stand up straight in time.Now i have babies everywhere in this bed.Turned over parents,moved parents now i'm not sure which is the 'Princess Rose' & which is 'Pacific Blue Ice' i will have to wait until they get bigger and the weather turns cold for them to get their color,maybe then i will be able to tell them apart??
The fawn story was because something bigger than my basset hound has also been in it messing around,laying down or something & smooshed plants.
But nothing is being eaten!!!! just moved around,except disappearing sedum cuttings.I truly believe birds & squirrels did something with it

Jojoe, I'm sorry that the critters are upsetting your gardens. I would be piping mad. Is there any repellant, physical or chemical that might help just repel them from coming into that area?
Recently, I almost crashed into a deer coming out from a narrow space between two houses that are close together. I thought animals didn't do that, wander into spaces where it's not easy to get out from, but I guess as long as they can still see the sky, they feel OK wandering into such semi-dangerous spaces?

jojoe

So sorry to hear about the destruction. It will sort itself out with time.
I think many of us here have had disasters like yours. So upsetting when it happens.

I am so sorry to hear that! Have you ever thought of feeding the critters in an area away from your Semps? Then you can feed the baby deer and when their bellies are full, they won't want to eat any of your Semps!? Does this even work? I just thought it sounded like something I would have tried.. :/ I hope that helps or sparks some ideas in your head!

Today, I was digging out a patch of John Creech out of my semp bed and spotted this in the uprooted soil: A Grub? Didn't look for more but this is the 2nd I have bumped into in the last couple of months in my semp bed.

It is curled up in first pic and then unwound itself and started crawling away. Camera shy?


I think these caused some of my semps to be hollowed out in Fall 2012. This was the reason I ended up at ATP looking for : HELP. Lynn, (part time Dr. Houseleek...) remember this pic?

Yes, I do.
Take your first photo, it's the sharpest one and post here to see if one of them can ID this grub. http://garden.org/forums/view/...
It may, or may not be the culprit. I find them in my beds on occasion but have not found any damage.

I think it's a generic cutworm, which are larvae of different night flying moths. They can feed on roots of semps just like they do on other plants.

Just checked out grub and cutworm on Google and Patty, it does look more like a cutworm! Thanks for the lead!