red lily beetles Heeelp!

Sooo many lost lilies this year, now they['re moving on to the Soloman's Seal and the trycistis (sp?) ie. toad lilies, anyway, what chemicals (I'm desperate) or bio cures can help. They moved in my MA.area last year, but this year they are voracious.

Please tell me what to do.

Thx. Firebirds

Neem oil is supposed to kill the immatures and repel the adults.

I tried using Neem Oil on them last year, but they just shrugged it off. Almost all of the gardening sites, magazines & journals here in Germany claim the best method is just to pick them off and drop them in a cup of soapy water, or else just stamp on the little rats!!

They are known as 'Lilienhähnchen' (Lily Chicken) here, cos when you grab one and squeeze it, it is supposed to make a sound like a chicken clucking. Well, I've tried this many times but never heard a thing.
BTW THEY DON'T BITE, so you can just grab them and dispose how you think best.

If you get too close and don't have a sheet of paper or something else which you can catch them in, they just let themselves fall to the ground and lie on their back, and you don't find them again until they are back on your plants.

The brown clump of slime on the underside of the leaves is the excrement from the larvae which hides inside this mess, and eats away at your leaves from the underside.
These can be removed with using rubber gloves made wet by dipping in soapy water, then sliding them off ready for their demise.

The adults can fly, so make sure that when you grab them, and put them on the ground, that you jump on them quick enough before they buzz off.

*rant over*


Wintermoor

I used Seven. Kills them dead... Adults & the larvea. I sprayed them good once at the begining of the season when they first started showing up. I've seen a couple here and there since, but not very many.

photo of the bug for identity http://www.funet.fi/pub/sci/bio/life/insecta/coleoptera/chrysomelidae/lilioceris/

faq about lily beettle http://www.which.net/gardeningwhich/advice/lilybeetle.html

i had to do research cuz i lost a lot of my oriental lilies the past winter, never knew why. am glad i come across this thread. now i knew what i need to find. hope these url's are able to help others.

MaVie, Last I knew, the red lily beetle is a problem in the Northeast only.... so far. Hopefully you won't get them in your neck of the woods. They're nasty! I saw my first one 2 years ago. I only saw one or 2 that year and I didn't really know what they were. The next year (last year) I had a bunch... and my lilies were a mess. This year I didn't hesitate to whip out the spray.

Sue... i do understand that from a reading sometime ago. i just ignored it till last winter, when a lot of my orientals disappeared out of the blue. i emptied the pots where the orientals were planted. not even a sign of the bulb or its residue appeared on the soil. i don't see no bugs. that is a big mystery to me. i wish i knew the answer for the dissappearing lilium bulb... both for the asiatic and oriental. this winter i am not taking chances of what i got left. i think i will dig them up, and store them as they are. i wanted to replace what i have lost, but i find for the 1st time this past Spring there were no lilium bulbs available for sale in my area. normally the past years, the market was flooded with them.

thank you for the picture of these bugs. now how come i have the feeling that living here in springfield, massachusetts that i'm going to have these in no time flat? i haven't noticed any yet, but i'm going to keep my eyes peeled. the poor lilies are dealing with the Botrytis cinerea fungus now. the copper soap i used hasn't seemed to slow it down one bit..
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poppysue, when did you start to see them? i would like to keep my eyes peeled for them about that time next year.
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firebird,thanks for this thread it is helping me out immensely. debi z

I've grown lilies for a long time... one of my first plants in the gardens. The lily beetles started showing up 2 years ago. Just a few the first year but last year there were tons. This year I started spraying and they haven't been too bad. Found one today tho.......