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What Eats Marigolds? Pests or Animals? Solutions to Getting Rid of Them

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One of the common questions that came into your mind is “what eats marigolds, which I planted to keep the pests away from eating other flowers?” One of the common flowers in every garden is marigold.

Everyone loves to plant a marigold tree because this flower can grow easily with a little care. Also, many people use it to keep many pests and insects away. But just like you, they are also unaware of the fact that there are some insects and pests out there that find the marigold tasty and amazing.

What Eats Marigolds

What Eats Marigolds? Pests or Animals?

Marigold has a strong odor and other properties which helps to keep the insects and pests away. But that doesn’t stop some of the insects and animals.

They find marigold delicious and eat your marigold as breakfast, lunch, and dinner. To prevent them from eating the marigold you need to know the names of these animals. Here are some common animals and insects.

Grasshoppers

While most of the insects don’t come near the marigold for the offensive odor, grasshoppers quite enjoy the meal.

Grasshoppers can’t fly but they can jump long which helps them to reach the tall marigolds. You might think they are resting on the marigold but they are eating your marigold at the same time.

Grasshoppers are quite notorious and they chew every part of almost every plant. You can get rid of them by guarding the marigolds with a thin net or keeping a natural predator in the garden.

Grasshoppers - What Eats Marigolds

Rabbits

Insects are one thing but when it comes to eating marigold, you should first search for a rabbit nearby. Marigolds are a favorite food of rabbits. The might sneak and eat the marigolds silently without alarming you.

Best way to keep out the rabbits by guarding the area with a fence or use rabbit repellent sprays such as Fooey! Ultra-Bitter Training Aid Spray, Critter Ridder Deer & Rabbit Repellent and many more. But once you use the repellent spray in the marigolds, you can’t eat them too because of the chemicals.

Rabbits - What Eats Marigolds

Slugs

Slugs are very well known for fisting in the gardens. They eat all the plants and flowers including marigolds.

They eat marigolds completely ignoring the strong odor of the flowers. You can’t catch a marigold during the day, but you can identify if the marigolds are being eaten by slugs.

Slugs tend to eat the leafs half with a round pattern and also, they leave a trail of slime in the ground. They come at night and chew the whole leaves and flowers silently, you can catch them in the night and wash them off with soapy water or detergent water.

Slugs - What Eats Marigolds

Spider mites

The spider mite is very common but hard to identify. Due to the small size of them, you can’t identify them without looking closely at every corner of the tree.

Spider mites are very close to insects and spiders and they eat the flowers and plants differently from other insects. They absorb the fluids and leave the plants and flowers to die.

The best way to identify if the marigolds are being eaten by spider mites is to look at the patterns in the flowers and plants. If you see all of the plants and flowers are turned yellow, you might consider using pest control sprays to get rid of the spider mites.

Birds

You might think birds come to your garden only to eat other insects from the flower. But that is not the case, birds also eat flowers and plants. Many birds fly by and eat flowers including marigold. Among all the other birds, blackbirds love to eat marigold and fest on them.

Insects eat the marigolds and leave some chewing trails or other patterns behind but birds usually don’t leave any trail behind.

If you notice that only holes are there in marigolds without any chewing, then it might be birds. You can prevent birds from eating your marigold by guarding them with a net or scarecrow.

Birds - What Eats Marigolds

Diseases

Some of the diseases can harm your marigold. Some of the fungi are very well known for eating flowers. They are living organisms that spread from one to another tree and flowers.

You might think that some insect has eaten the marigold of your garden but these molds and fungi eat the marigolds without getting noticed.

The best way to know that fungal diseases are harming the flowers is to look for a pattern. These molds and fungi feed on the plant after the plant.

So if you see your whole garden is getting affected and eaten and turning brown, gray, then you should spray soaps to get rid of them. If you ignore them they will spread and kill all the plants in the garden.

Aphids

Another very destructive pest is aphids. Aphids can destroy a whole garden in its way. They are attracted to colorful flowers and love to feed on them. If you see all the flowers are eaten and sticky secretions are left behind on the leaves, then it is aphids.

The only way to get rid of this aphids is to identify the infestation as quickly as possible and use a chemical called rotenone. Use this chemical in the evening to get the best results.

Japanese Beetles

Japanese beetles are known to eat roses. But if there are no roses, they will start eating the marigolds. You can easily identify if the marigolds are eaten by Japanese beetles by just looking at the leaves and flowers. Because they leave small holes in leaves and flowers.

The best way to get rid of them to use a bucket full of soapy water and spraying them in the flowers and leaves. Also, you can just locate them to pick up and drop in the soapy water to kill instantly.

Do not use traps to catch them as it will attract more insects and harm your marigolds. If the situation gets worse you can use an insecticide to kill them.

Japanese Beetles - What Eats Marigolds

Caterpillars

One of the most common insects that love to eat marigold is caterpillars. Many different species of caterpillars are out there and every one of them can devour the whole plant of marigold alone.

They are very hard to catch for their colors, most of the caterpillars are green and they camouflage themselves very well with the tree making it almost impossible to detect them in plain sight.

You need to look closely to find them, and it is very important to catch them as fast as you can. Because compared to other insects, caterpillars are known to eat the marigolds very quickly.

If you do not get rid of them in the initial stage then they will eat the whole plant in very less time. The best way to get rid of them to pick them up and ill them but as it is hard to identify, you can also spray caterpillar remover to remove them from the tree.

Caterpillars - What Eats Marigolds

Conclusion

If your bloomy garden of marigold is getting eaten and you don’t know who is eating it then you can get some help from the above information.

You can use Fooey! Ultra-Bitter Training Aid Spray, Critter Ridder Deer & Rabbit Repellent and other insecticides along with soapy water to get rid of most of them. If you have any other questions please ask them in the comment.