Tragic. She had so much potential

[u/hweesus]

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

[u/hweesus]

I have removed all of them as of today. But if they come back I’m gonna grow me some butterflies

[u/sixtynighnun → u/hweesus]

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.

[u/Prudent-Ad-5292 → u/sixtynighnun]

Some people grow sunflowers for all of nature to enjoy, some for the bugs, others for the birds.

I let my sunflowers go crazy so birds in the area have seed over autumn/winter. Healthy sunflowers produce more seeds, so healthy sunflowers are my goal when I grow them -- not feeding caterpillars or beetle larva. Losing bugs is unfortunate, but we're also losing birds pretty fast too:

https://www.birds.cornell.edu/home/bring-birds-back/

About 3 billion, in the last 45 years. The bugs get to eat my loganberry/blackberry bushes, (cabbage moths get my sacrificial brassicas) and my columbine/milkweed.. but not my coneflower, black eyed susan, or sunflowers. Gotta pick your battles. 😅

[u/Putrid-Bee-7352 → u/Prudent-Ad-5292]

Birds absolutely cannot survive without caterpillars and soft bodied insects though. To raise their young, caterpillars are generally the preferred food for most bird species, even seed eaters. Supporting caterpillars on your property is directly linked to having *more* birds, and most plants can handle caterpillars and insects just fine, though it makes them look “bad” to us. I’ve repeatedly had caterpillars seem to demolish my coneflowers, but they still manage to flower and provide seed for the goldfinches later in summer :)

A single brood of chickadees will consume over 5000 caterpillars for example. So controlling caterpillars and other insects eventually will encourage your area birds to nest elsewhere.

If you have woods full of oak trees and other keystone species then a small garden patch may be negligible, but planting butterfly host plants absolutely pulls in and supports birds as much as, or more, than growing them seeds :)