Lilies: I'm a newbie & I need help with Asiatic and Oriental Lilies!, 3 by cathy166

cathy166 wrote:
Analen, you could not get better advice than from Donna and Mary. They have and share wonderful experience.

The one thing I can add has to do with lilies as you are in the northeast like I am. If you do not protect your lilies, you will find that they are being eaten by the red lily beetle. After lots of damage and trying lots of products, I have found the best solution is spinosad. It can be purchased as a spray or a concentrate that can be sprayed. In my experience it is best used by spraying the soil before the bulbs even sprout. The larvae do no die during the winter. As soon as the soil warms, so do they. This spray is specifically for beetles bacteriologically, and I consider it environmentally safe for living things, both animal and vegetable.

I use Captain Jack's Dead Bug, but you may be able to find it under another name at most garden centers. If you do not spray the soil, but the plant itself, you may get some discoloration, and the larvae will continue to hatch and go after lilies and fritillary but not nonliliums like day lilies and others with lily in their name that are not true lilies. Their appetite is insatiable, and they continue to produce larvae all summer long by laying eggs on the underside of leaves and covering the larvae with tarry black excrement. Many growers control the beetles with toxic chemicals, but I find spinosad to be safe and amazingly effective when sprayed on the soil.

Luckily, there must be enough lilies to eat in the northeast as they have not migrated to Alaska or Illinois or too far from the New England, New Yorkand adjacent areas.

Beetles have chewed on the petals in the first photo and on the foliage in the second in the summer of 2011 Photos 3 and 4 are from 2013 after diligent applications on the soil. By the way, I don't think we had lily beetles before 2009.
Marcia