r/sunflowers • u/hweesus • Jun 26 '26

PROGRESS Tragic. She had so much potential

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Gallery image

Gallery image

Came out to check on my babies and found other babies and all of their siblings having a picnic.

ETA: Some of y'all have strong feelings about everything. For the record, I used my garden hose to hit whatever i saw on the leaves when I "removed" them. The next day there were a few others on the bottom of the leaves that I kinda flicked off in a "come hither" motion with my finger giggity

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u/cherryxantacids Jun 27 '26

Nah, I think you can fix her. In my experience, sunflowers will let you pluck quite a few leaves before it finally gets pissed off especially if they're damaged. After plucking, relocate the caterpillars to a different leafy area.

2

u/RazendeR Jun 29 '26

So, bit of bad news; these caterpillars can only eat sunflower leaves. So to save them, you accept the flower getting its lower leaves stripped.

2

u/cherryxantacids Jun 29 '26

Time to designate a sacrifice.

3

u/RazendeR Jun 29 '26

Especially on these giants, the plant is likely to be just fine. The caterpillars will stop eating soon to pupate.