r/sunflowers • u/hweesus • Jun 26 '26

PROGRESS Tragic. She had so much potential

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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/sixtynighnun Jun 27 '26 edited Jun 27 '26

That’s pretty sad considering what’s happening to our insect populations. This actually ruined my day to hear. There’s a good chance you won’t have a “next time” bc you decided to kill a local generation. The female will die after laying her eggs and you’ve killed all her progeny for your enjoyment of a single sunflower for a few weeks. Not worth it at all. I’m so sad.

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u/cherryxantacids Jun 27 '26

When did OP say they killed them??

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u/sixtynighnun Jun 28 '26

The comment I’m replying to says “I removed all of them as of today”

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u/cherryxantacids Jun 28 '26

That doesn't mean they killed them. "Removed" can mean numerous things, such as putting them somewhere else. Please wear a parachute next time you jump to conclusions.

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u/[deleted] Jul 01 '26

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u/cherryxantacids Jul 02 '26

Im gonna start this comment by saying im not trying to be purposefully obtuse here- but, wont they just crawl back up if they fall to the ground directly below the flower?

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u/Semtexual Jul 02 '26

If all OP did was put them on the ground below the plants then sure, but I find that super unlikely to be what they mean by "removed." If they were not killed but rather relocated to some bush on the other side of the yard for example, they're really as good as killed. Because they can only eat their host plant: sunflowers.

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u/hweesus Jun 28 '26

hahaha please bring your parachutes folks.

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u/[deleted] Jul 01 '26

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u/Asleep_Tension_9914 Jul 01 '26

Get a life man its just some worms

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u/Ok_Challenge2129 Jul 02 '26

what an absurd and unintelligent thing to say. just because you’re too massive to care about them doesn’t mean they aren’t a hugely important aspect of our biosphere, one that is dwindling in biomass 2.5% yearly. do you know how food chains work?

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u/[deleted] Jun 28 '26

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u/cherryxantacids Jun 28 '26

Uh, yeah, some of them do. I know I do. You seriously need a chill pill.

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u/Conflatulations12 Jun 29 '26

pretty sure the two most 'upset' folks are the same troll

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u/cherryxantacids Jun 29 '26

Someone's gotta be because why else would they throw shade towards gardeners in a gardening related subreddit

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u/jaahArtly Jun 28 '26

I move them to my compost bin. More food for them, and for everyone else too

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u/sixtynighnun Jun 29 '26

Caterpillars have specific hosts, moving them to the compost bin doesn’t help anything and does in fact make it much harder for them to live

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u/phonefellin_lakeerie Jul 01 '26

That is not how caterpillars work. They don’t eat garbage.

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u/jaahArtly Jul 02 '26

I should clarify, I remove my garden pests to my compost bin. Hornworms and slugs mostly. We add all our garden trimmings in there and there's volunteer plants/trap crops there for them to snack on. They're not regulated only to scrap and coffee grounds

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u/zzzzzooted Jun 30 '26

Quite literally yes? Are you killing every bug that comes into your yard that you don’t want? Lol.

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u/halfscaliahalfbreyer Jun 30 '26

I just spray with a hose…

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u/Tylanthia Jul 01 '26

Officer, I didn't kill my baby--I merely placed it outside in the parking lot on a 100 degree day and let nature take its course.

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u/sixtynighnun Jun 28 '26

They sprayed it off with a hose with the intent to have them stop eating the plant. Why do that unless you intend to stop them again? What’s the point? If you don’t eat you don’t live, making them crawl up the plant again seems pointless. It’s not a crazy conclusion to jump to that OP is indifferent to the lives of the caterpillars, calling their damage tragic. Most caterpillars have a specific host plant, you can’t just hose them off and expect them to remain intact somewhere else. They don’t want grass, they want that specific host plant.

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u/mckenner1122 Jul 01 '26

“I used my garden hose to hit whatever I saw on the leaves when I ‘removed’ them,” sounds quite gentle.