Lily beetles

I don't think you need to even discuss temperature with the lily beetle. They is a population in Manitoba already. They get a lot colder up there.

Have always admired Manitobans for being able to tough it out in their winters. Could extend the same admiration to the lily beetles, but, in the present company, I won't!

This message was edited Feb 28, 2009 7:32 PM

Wow Billy, you guys didn't get below 0 this year? I'm moving down there! January 16th when I pulled out of my drive to go to Minnesota it was -40. We had to go to Minnesota for it to warm up! :)

A strange winter we've been having, when Iowa gets colder than the southern third of Minnesota. 40 miles west of Minneapolis, the coldest I endured in January was -27F.

Yeah, I didn't like it much either. We had about a week of nasty cold temperatures in January, other than that it was just cold.

Ouch! Hurts, doesn't it!? I know you've had some chilly temps this year but I've experienced -40 only in Minnesota. A couple times. And the wind chill was -70.

There now, makes you feel better, huh? ;)

Just kidding ~ I know what a chilly-bean you are!

As long as you didn't breath while you were out it was fine. ;) LOL My frozen tundra... There was a driveway somewhere in there...

Gee, I guess I'll stop complaining about the -13 we got. Comparatively balmy.

Donna

Ticker, ROTFL, my neighbor to the north and her daughter just moved there a couple of years ago! You could have bought their place! What! 40 below! No, I don't think we were under 0. If we were it was brief. I'd have to go back thru my diary to be sure. Jan 16th this year, we had 20* at 5:45am. You have some snow!! Right now it's 28*, cloudy breezy from the south and no snow at all.

DonnaMack, I think I'll stay right here where I am!

Iowa seemed to have some deep temperature pockets. Cedar Rapids, which I don't think is very far from Lisbon, didn't go below -23F all January.

Wow, Billy, I'm glad you were warm. It wasn't that warm up here. On January 15 Cedar Rapids broke the record with 29 below. Dan and I were on our way to Minnesota the morning of January 16th and my car thermometer kept reading -40. So be glad you were warm. It wasn't here.

Here's an article from the Gazette on January's cold.

http://www.gazetteonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090131/NEWS/701319952

Leftwood, CR is 15 miles West of me. :) It would get up to 10 or 15 and we'd think we were having a heat wave. LOL

Ticker, ironically, my north neighbor who moved, moved to Lisbon. I still see her once in a while since her daughter still lives here.

It is nice to be just far enough to the south to be warmer. I try to listen to Moline weather on the weather radio and TV since it's more us than Cedar Rapids is.

Today we hit 63*. Right now it's 57 and raining. Good for tulips!

I just saw this thread and have to agree that the bitter Apple Product sounds great. I am lucky, no lily beetles here as I have hundreds of lilies and keep buying more. I would hate to have to spray.

I'm so jealous of all these hundreds of lilies!! Where do you guys put all of them? I just ordered four trumpets and had to put them in a pot till I find a place for them :o)

Sally!

You would be amazed at the spaces that exist in your yard you had not thought of. Grass beds.

Donna

Retaining walls.

Places they are not supposed to grow, like the north side of your house!

Donna the Enabler

Just saw this thread. Evil lily beetles are in AB. I don't have them but I checked every day last summer and will do so this year. This is a handy reference card that a lily supplier is including in shipments now. http://plantlilies.com/growlilies/101-beetlecard.html

Wow, dahlianut; thanks for the card. I've but a few lilies, will be watching out for those uglies! Ahem! I'm trying my hand on organic gardening for my butterfly-garden sake. Should those beetles get here -- it would be bad news.

I want to stay organic for my bees, butterflies and birds too. I'm really worried that I have so many lilies I won't be able to control them by hand if I get them.

Donna, your pictures are lovely. I agree, always room for more lilies.

Donnamack, I had to laugh over the grass beds. I've been training myself to remove the grass from my beds! Ha ha. I love the picture! That's a good match! I did order Miscanthus varigata, I think it's Porcupine rather than Zebra, which died on me for no reason. I can start with it.

I don't really have a grass bed, yet... or a retaining wall. I do have many balloon flower, and I love that combo! Now I know what to do with those that open. I have the Komach, that stays in a ball too with the same dark blue color. I also love the color of your wall! You have spectacular lilies!!

Wah! including a card makes it official. I've bookmarked the site and am ready to kill on sight.

Billy, I don't believe they are in Iowa as of yet.

Ticker, not yet, but I am warned and will start looking this year.

Did you get rain sleet and snow today?

We got slushed, yes. I'm so tired of it.

I got out and worked yesterday. Not near enough time to do all I wanted to do. I did get the borer control on the iris. I hate to, but I have to.

Now I need to make some sourdough biscuits and get myself some supper. ( We ate at 10:00 am and I'm hungry! :o)

Hi Lily people!
Just saw my first LB last night.New Martagons had 1 but I am off to HD for some Bayer Rose and Insect spray..
Thanks for this thread,I had forgotten how Lilliacks treated the pest.

Yesterday was our first really warm day and I found two that won't be there today! I hope to apply a soild drench today and apply. Never too early to start the fight! If you don't find the Bayer product at HD, try Wally World.

I did see some at Bristols Garden center and tho its a bit more expensive I'll pay for it.
OMG I had no idea how much damage they do. We only saw 1 on a martagon, when I went to sprinkle Sevin, 1 of the three plants was riddled with holes.
I am going to curtail me lily buying if it takes this much gymnastics to deal with the beetles. Some of the emerging bulbs are in hard to get at places.
Now its going to rain. Good thing the Liquid Fence has been on for about an hour.

I saw my first 2 LBs of the season today. I've sprayed, but there is so much new growth, I need to keep spraying. In the last 5 days, everything has grown and grown. I cannot bear to provide dinner for insects who don't pay rent and damage the premises.

I used the last of the Sevin powder we have. I'm going to the store for Bayer product.
Another gloious day and it seems everything is popping out as soon as I look for it.

I have found 5 lily beetles already - and the first was a mating pair. Horrifying! Last year I only found a dozen or so all season. But I also found something I've never seen before - a trail of several little evenly spaced red dots in a row - less than the size of a pen tip - teeny. They weren't moving, but were raised bumps on a lily leaf. I wondered if they could possibly be baby lily beetles, though I can't imagine they'd be so small. I didn't take a photo as I was anxious to get rid of them. Does anyone have any idea what they were?

Also, does neem oil work on lily beetles?

Those must have been larva.
KILL them all, especially the mating pain,could end another 1000 potential beetles right there.
I have heard Neem oil works.
I also heard Bayer Rose and Insect spray works too. Thats what I use.
I constantly check for the holes in the lily leaves. Word ahs it there working on a combatant for it at some University or other.

ge1836, those red dots were on the top of the leaf, and the beetles larvae are laid on the undersides of leaves, covered in excrement. There was no sign of any of that excrement anywhere, nor any holes in that lily leaf.
As soon as I see a lily beetle, I run for my jar of water with a film of vegetable oil on top, and knock them into it. I definitely learned my lesson several years ago when my few clumps of asiatic lilies were devastated by them. I swore off lilium for several years due to not wanting to deal with the beetle, but over the past couple of years I've planted lots of lilium varieties. I don't like to use toxic substances, but as soon as this several days of rain is over, all my lilies are going to get a dose of neem oil - and frequent inspections.

Perhaps they were Spider Mites?

Ticker, are spider mites harmful - and is it likely they'd be lined up in an evenly spaced line, still, and ready to march like a small army?

Beats me. I once had them on a house plant and they were red little dots. It's the first thing I thought of..

Here is some info. on spidermites, they can cause pretty serious damages to your plants. I found them difficult to control with houseplants.
http://www.ext.colostate.edu/PUBS/insect/05507.html

Spidermites came into my garden in a load of lumber. YAHOO that predator mites came with them so things were back to normal quite quickly. A word of caution is that pesticides will kill the predatory mites too.

Thanks for the link Lily, but I didn't see any signs of eggs or damage, and these red dots all stayed perfectly still, even after I removed the leaf that they were on. I don't quite believe they were spider mites. In any case I don't see any more of them elsewhere. (knock on wood). If they return, I'll try to take a photo and post on the insect or pest forum. And if they ARE spider mites, hope I have some of their predator mites around.