Dis-aster

Those asters I planted last weekend started out looking pretty nice, but unfortunately I didn't get a picture of them – and the blossoms are almost all gone, thanks to something that has been steadily nipping them off until the plants look like this:


See those little white dots in the bottom half of the picture? (Click on it to see the larger version, which may show them better.) Those are the ends of stems that, until recently, held numerous blossoms like the one you can just see on the edge of the picture. I don't know for sure what's munching on'em because I haven't caught the bugger in the act, but my guess is the little brown bunny rabbit that I've been seeing around intermittently. Got to get me some rabbit repellent, because it's not my intention to supply this critter with a daily aster salad at $6.50 per plant .