It would sure be a shame after all your hard work making the bed, but I certainly couldn't blame you.

I'm hoping very much that the bed is still usable if not for semps. Do catepillars eat everything that's green, fuzzy or aromatic?

So much work. I'm so sorry.

I finally found a picture of my bugs. Not caterpillars, but leatherjackets. The only treatment seems to be a biological one, microworms watered into the garden in august and September. Wish I'd known before I spent out on caterpillar killer.

Can you return it?

I've already applied it! Oh well

I noticed that there is an American product by bug-be-gone and it is supposed to kill these.

One of the control articles I read said birds were a solution

You may have had a combination of birds trying to eat the worms and the worms eating the plants.

It is by Ortho and distributed by Scotts Lawn food products -- European Crane Fly Larvae is one of the things. it kills.

Says to apply in the spring or early summer.

Thanks Marilyn. The only thing that I can find available here is a type of biological control. Microscopic woms watered into the affected areas in September when the new larvae are young. I'm going to dig all my plants out tomorrow and pot them up until I'm happy that I've got them under control.

Wow, I finally got to this thread while trying to catch up in the Semp Forum.
Kate that is down right ugly. Grubs are so destructive. So far the only grubs I find in the beds are not harmful to the semps and sedum.
Hope I don't have nightmares tonight.
So sorry Kate, but also thankful that you didn't loose them all.

Think I'd pot them up for a bit too Kate. Such a shame after all your hard work, but like Lynn, I'm glad you didn't lose them.

Thanks all

I've been reading a bit about them, and apparantly they lay their eggs in September, in the same place that they hatched from. The grubs don't burrow down very far in the soil. So I could remove my plants, dig up as many of the grubs that I can find before the flies hatch. . Once they do hatch, cover the bed in plastic so that they can't lay eggs there again ,and treat the whole garden with the mocro worms to reduce numbers as far as possible. HOPEFULLY this will be enough to prevent a reacuurance next spring. As long as I don't find any evidence of them in the bed then I could try putting my semps back in.

The alternative would be to find nice pot/troughs to display my collection in and plant the bed up with something else. But I'd have to do a bit of googling to find out if there's anything that they don't like.

I know which one would be easier, but I don't know if I'm ready to give up the idea of my semp bed just yet

I am also wondering if you could use something like Bonide. It is taken up by the plants, insects that eats the plants or roots are killed. http://www.bonide.com/

I know you probably aren't taking votes but I vote for the semp bed...

with Bev on the semp bed.
Was thinking about it some more. Wonder if you could plant something else that they like (while in the grub stage) and use a systemic. That should get them when they start eating the new plants.

Thanks Lynn, I'll check that out.

In my heart that's my vote too Bev, I'm waiting for my head to catch up

I've just pulled the semps out for tonight and left them in empty pots, one night wont hurt. Tomorrow I'll take the blue tray I had from work, get my Dad to drill it for me and plant the smaller ones in that and buy some terra cotta pots for the larger ones to be comfortable in.

On a positive note, there didn't seem to be any fresh damage that was immediately obvious, and there were far fewer buggies in the ground too. So maybe I'm winning. Just a little.

But looking at these forlorn semps, that just a couple of weeks ago looked so strong and healthy is heart breaking. I know that most of them should recover very well but I'm just sad at the sight right now.

we cross posted Lynn, yes thanks another good idea. Definitely worth a try once the semps have had chance to recover a bit.

Another positive that I thought of (I'm trying hard lol) was that I could replace the smaller stones that I wasn't 100% happy with, which I probably wouldn't have done for a while otherwise.

Would it be possible to put your pots down into the semp bed?

Would that keep the grubs out if you cover the drainage hole with mesh of some kind?

It would be nice to see them in that space again.

That's a thought Marilyn! They can climb quite well but it might be a good idea for when I first put them back, to test the water as it were.

Great idea!