Budworms and Fuzzy Caterpillars on Dahlia Foliage - September 2024

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One of my Dahlias - a Melina Fleur variety - that is planted in a protected spot (against the house) on the southside in (mostly) full sun has been pretty busy producing blooms the past few weeks.  But, I started to notice that some of the foliage was starting to get eaten up.  Not lace-like, but holes at the tips and in the middle of a number of leaves.  And, those holes kept getting greater in numbers.  A week ago, I sprayed the plant with Neem Oil, thinking that I might get whomever/whatever was eating the leaves. 

But, that didn't seem to slow it down.  So, I went in for a closer look.  And...sure enough...I found a couple of different pests on the plant.  The first were these fuzzy caterpillars.  There were like 30 (that I could find) that I picked off and stomped on.  I also clipped off a number of the partially-eaten leaves.  See below for the backside of the leaf with two (large) and one (tiny) caterpillars below:

Fuzzy Caterpillars on Dahlia Leaves

The other thing that I found was a green worm ON THE FLOWER.  Near the center.  A look around the Web tells me that these are Bud Worms.  He was easy to pick off and smush.  

The rest of my dahlias haven't taken on the same damage (just yet), but now I'm on HIGH ALERT and I'll be watching these closely.  Here's hoping that I was able to get MOST of the fuzzy caterpillars.

One other note (to myself):  Look into some mesh organza bags for Dahlia blooms next year.  

Location: Downers Grove, IL, USA

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