Petunias are members of the nightshade family, along with plants such as tomatoes, eggplants, peppers, and potatoes. Accordingly, these bright little flowers often fall victim to the same pests as their brethren, resulting in pock-marks and holes in their petals. However, as a gardener, you can use preventative measures to ward off pests and protect your petunias from punctured petals.
To prevent holes in your petunia petals, use pest repellent or pick pests manually. It’s also important to understand the potential pests to make identification easier and streamline the process.
In this article, I’ll walk you through the steps you can take to keep your petunias pest-free this season. So, let’s get into it!
1. Recognize the Most Common Pests of Petunia Petals
Petunias fall victim to many pests, but some are much more common than others. If you find that your petunias have holes, one of these pests is likely at fault:
- Rabbits, squirrels, and mice. Small animals often consume petunia petals, leaves, and stems, and they can eradicate your entire plot of petunias if left unchecked. Detecting these animals is simple since they are easy to spot and frequently return to the flower bed for a snack.
- Deer. Deer may graze on your petunias if they can get to them, so it’s best to fence off areas where you plan to plant petunias.
- Livestock. Animals such as chickens, donkeys, and goats will also eat petunias. Therefore, it’s best to plant petunias out of your animals’ reach.
- Caterpillars. Many caterpillars, such as leafminers, tobacco budworms, and cutworms, love to consume petunias. These pests usually gather underneath your petunia’s leaves and eat away at the foliage, but they may also eat the flower heads and buds.
- Slugs and snails. Slugs and snails aren’t picky about what they eat, and they can reproduce so quickly that they may threaten your entire garden. Slugs and snails particularly like petunia flowers since they are sweeter than the leaves and stems.
- Aphids. Aphids are tiny insects that suck the sap out of plants such as petunias, weakening and eventually harming your plants. They can be challenging to eliminate since they reproduce very quickly and are so small that you can’t easily pick them off your plants.
- Whiteflies. Whiteflies eat sap, much like aphids, and are about the same size. However, most whiteflies can fly, making them difficult to eradicate. They commonly gather on the undersides of your petunia’s leaves and are most active during the daytime.
2. Monitor Your Petunias To Detect Pests
If you suspect that pests are making meals out of your petunias, you’ll need to keep a close eye on them and catch your garden’s invader.
Naturally, livestock, deer, and rabbits will be easier to spot than slugs and aphids. However, to get a comprehensive idea of the pests you’re dealing with, you’ll need to watch from up close and afar.
When checking for insects, examine the undersides of your petunias’ leaves. That’s where aphids, whiteflies, slugs, and snails usually hide.
To monitor for larger pests, watch your plants for around an hour every day until you find the culprit of your punctured petunia petals.
3. Remove Pests From Your Petunias Manually
Best for: eliminating caterpillars, slugs, and snails or reducing the population of whiteflies and aphids.
Manual removal is an excellent way to eliminate pests such as caterpillars, slugs, and snails. These pests can be challenging to eradicate otherwise, and they are easy enough to spot, which makes it possible to pluck them off your petunias by hand.
Most people who wish to remove these pests choose to pluck them off of the plant with tweezers and drown them in a container of warm soapy water. However, you can relocate the insects if you don’t want to kill them.
You can also use a wet rag to wipe off aphids and whiteflies, which you can attempt to drown in soapy water. However, since these pests are usually significant in number and difficult to track down, this method is best used when combined with another one that’s more effective for these pests.
4. Make a Barrier To Keep Pests Out
Best for: rabbits, squirrels, mice, chipmunks, deer, and livestock.
While petunias are a favorite snack among common garden wildlife such as rabbits, deer, and squirrels, livestock such as donkeys and chickens will also eat them. It can be challenging to deter these pests from devouring your garden flowers, and if it’s your livestock to blame, you likely won’t sell off your animals to save your petunias.
For that reason, creating a barrier around your petunias is an effective solution for protecting them from grazing animals.
In many cases, this barrier doesn’t have to be a fence, although sometimes a fence is best. Here are some of the best preventative barriers for protecting your petunias depending on the pest you are dealing with:
| Pest | Ways To Deter The Pests |
| Rabbits |
|
| Deer |
|
| Squirrels, mice, and chipmunks |
|
| Livestock such as chickens |
|
So, for most animal pests, you can use either a fence or offensive odors to protect your petunias. However, if you combine both methods, you’ll see the most success.
It’s also important to note that the smelly solutions and powders, such as the egg to deter deer and lime to repel rabbits, need reapplication every time it rains. So, if you use a chicken wire barrier to help keep the pests away after the solution weakens, it’ll buy you more time before reapplying.
5. Apply Natural Pest Repellents to Your Petunias
Best for: all pests
Chemical insecticides and pesticides can cause more harm than good when treating plants such as petunias. They often poison beneficial members of our ecosystem and result in the death of the natural predators of the animals that eat petunias.
So, when treating your flowers, it’s best to use a natural pest repellent and not an insecticide or pesticide.
In the table above, I have mentioned some pest repellents that work as barriers against deer, rabbits, squirrels, and mice. However, I have not yet covered the repellents for petunias’ most common insect pests.
Here are some natural repellents and some details about what pests they work best for:
- Bacillus thuringiensis for caterpillars. Bacillus thuringiensis is a strain of bacteria toxic to most caterpillars when ingested, but it won’t harm the helpful predators in your petunia patch. It’s best to opt for a spray bottle of this all-natural insecticide. I recommend this Bonide Caterpillar and Worm Killer on Amazon.com because it is budget-friendly and safe for organic gardening.
- Diatomaceous earth for slugs and snails. Slugs and snails have soft, delicate bodies, so they avoid gliding along sharp and rough surfaces. Diatomaceous earth is an organic silica-based powder that is sharp enough to deter these pests, so it makes an ideal barrier to prevent them from climbing onto your petunias.
- Neem oil for aphids and whiteflies. Neem oil is one of the best repellents you can use in your garden. It deters troublesome pests like aphids and whiteflies while killing disease-causing fungi on your plants. You can get it for a low price pre-mixed in a spray bottle.
Final Thoughts
Pests that may eat away at petunias’ petals include mammals such as deer, rabbits, squirrels, mice, and livestock. In addition, insects such as slugs and snails, aphids, whiteflies, and caterpillars also appreciate the taste of petunias.
To prevent these pests, you’ll need to detect them early, remove them, create a barrier around your plants, and use a repellent. Certain methods work best for specific pests, so follow the guide above to keep your petunia patch unscathed, beautiful, and healthy.
