Why Are There Holes In My Callibrachoa

by Serena
(Ottawa, Ontario, Canada)

Callibrachoa flowers with holes

I've been growing these plants for summer colour for years now, and I've never seen this issue. The flowers are prolific, but when I look closely, they've got little round holes in them. What could possibly cause this? Do I need to spray something to prevent it?

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Jun 23, 2025

Advice From The Horticulturist
by: Jacki

This looks like the damage from leaf cutter bees, which leads to an image of the tiny new bees emerging from a flowery bower of the thimble shaped nest that the mother bee constructs. These bees don't live in hives like other bees, but they certainly do similar work.

They are valued for their ability to pollinate many of our important crops, such as squash, peppers and tomatoes and others. The busy female bee transports the pollen on her abdomen, not in baskets on the hind legs as is common in other bees.

There is no need to treat for this, the damage is soon hidden by the growth of new buds and flowers, and they can be dead headed if they're unsightly.

If the damage continues and is more obvious in the morning, it could instead be the nocturnal work of ear wigs, which have been a scourge in the past few years in many places. To deal with those, a roll of paper set among the flowers and dumped daily into a bucket of soapy water will do the trick. After a few mornings of this, they won't have the audacity to eat your flowers any more.

Good luck with this, I know how disheartening it is to grow beautiful flowers which are then decimated by insects. Take heart; they need to eat too, and you're providing them a nice, colourful meal.

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