Mind the gaps
Strange holes in plants? Bob reveals the main culprits to help you dodge disaster and salvage your crops
OUR garden can look pictureperfect – and then suddenly holes appear. This is of little consequence when plants are growing well. Holes in leaves allow light to pass through, illuminating lower leaves otherwise hidden. Thus, a modest percentage is no great problem for many plants – although it is visually unattractive, and of course with the likes of salad leaves it is totally unacceptable.
To stop more holes, you must first work out what is causing them. The most likely culprits are slugs and snails. These have rough tongues that rasp at leaves, fruit and tubers, leaving slightly scalloped holes in edges and middles.
If the holes have triangular notches in the edges, especially of succulent leaves, it’s birds pecking. But curved, notched pieces along the edges of leaves is a sure sign of vine weevil adults, and they’re doing less damage then their larvae at the roots. (Just occasionally, such as with roses, notching may be caused by benign leaf-cutter bees.) The edges of leaves and shoots nibbled away could be woodlice which chomp in a pack; if on flower buds, it could possibly be earwigs. Caterpillars chew methodically from an edge, but may also start making many small holes in one leaf near where they were laid and then later graduate out over the rest of the plant. Seedlings nibbled through and found tumbled over (in the ground) will be cutworms, ground-living larvae like caterpillars; indoors, it’s woodlice again. Chomped-down or levelled plants will be by a larger four-legged varmint. There are other suspects, even fungal attacks, that can create small holes. But those above are the most likely. What most have in common is they can often be spotted at night by torchlight, then dealt with. You know what to do…
“To stop more, work out what is causing them”