Help is at Hand

Congratulations to ExtraDays for identifying yesterday's petunia-eating pest as an armyworm.  This morning I went out with great determination to eradicate them, and look what I found! Praying mantids eat armyworms! How did she know they were there? I love her stance: looks like a cat watching a gopher hole. The holes in the flowers are all from those awful caterpillars; they can take down a bed pretty fast. I hope she had a good feast.

Oops. See gen2’s comments below. The lovely green creature is NOT a mantis, but a katydid. It does not eat worms/caterpillars, and, in fact, may eat petunias. In the meantime I have hand-picked the pests and removed all the damaged flowers. Stay tuned if you’re not already yawning…

The Extra is my design for a garden-lover’s jigsaw puzzle. Wouldn’t that be fun to figure out?  First, find the mantis. For bonus points find an army worm. Once you see it, you can’t unsee it. Or at least I can’t. Good luck.