admin

The pattern of damage is definitely not rabbit and almost certainly not bird: damage areas too tiny for rabbit chewing, not ragged/torn enough for collateral damage birds cause when stabbing to reach insects. It looks much more like a caterpillar, something that sat ON the leaf and moved its head back and forth in an arc eating leaf tissue edge-inward. Not a slug, they eat within the blade, not edge-in. Not a beetle, they scrape. Maybe a weevil but there are bigger areas of leaf involved than usual and this is not within usual weevil-season. Not a bug or aphid, they pierce, suck and deform or scar where they fed.Maybe a sawfly but like weevil issue, scope of each eaten area is bigger than is usual for sawflies, plus sawflies generally eat an entire leaf before moving to another. So I would look for caterpillars hiding nearby. You do that and I will go check our moth and caterpillar host plants lists to see if I can find any leads there.

We just recently cut back very hard leaving holes on this hedge, go look. http://www.gardenatoz.org/whats-up/this-week-in-our-gardens/spring-cut-cut-cut/boxwood-pruning/#rescue

We've assembled an answer team to field questions in real time on the GardenAtoZ.org Forum Saturday, April 26 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. If you or someone you know has a question or puzzle, go out with that smart phone, take a photo and post it on our Forum for a right-now answer. We are especially excited about this use of our Forum, and to a lively get-together with our team of instructors and alumni from our Gardening School era. Spread the word, please! If you are not yet a Forum Member yet please become a Member so you can post your questions... and then you can also practice ahead of time the things we'll all be doing on Instant-Answer day: 1. Post a question 2. Attach a photo 3. Request email notification of answers we post in reply Janet Macunovich and Steven Nikkila, Instant-Answer team leaders Here's the step-by-step to become a member and to post a question/photo: (More on posting photos - file size, rotating image etc.)

Thanks for the suggestion, Dsmith74. We've moved it.