Lovely leaf, not so lovely result, right?
When I first saw this, I thought I knew immediately what was happening. Several years ago, when I was in North Carolina, I heard about a beetle that was ravaging canna lilies there. I thought that this beetle had somehow made its way north (as all noxious things somehow eventually do) and gotten to Connecticut.
It turns out that there is a simpler explanation for all of this.
Yes, it still has to do with a noxious invader. But this time the “invader” is quite well known to us here in Connecticut and has been for some time.
What’s turning these Canna leaves into lace (and it really is pretty, unless these are your plants, in which case, you probably want to scream! I think I might do a little judicious trimming if they were mine) is the all too common Japanese beetle.
As a doctor once told me, sometimes even if you have an unusual presentation, we still look for a common explanation, and not for something rare. That’s probably good advice in gardening too.
Gardendaze 