HELP!!!!!!!!!!

I will be looking for critters first, for sure.
Was that this year, beaker? By coincidence, I have a lot of Aphrodites right behind the Jubileos that took such a hit. I haven't inspected them closely as they are finished blooming anyway, but that makes me wonder if they were in this, too. Need to look all of them over anyway. Tomorrow...

Plant corn, hmmm, never have had much luck with that, but I've never thought of it as a bait crop, either. I love it!

Don't know if it's a corn or stalk borer, but whatever I find will have its picture taken.

Well, I had a different problem, Lily. Only one of three bulbs came up and when the first bloom opened I could see it was virused. I dug them all up and could see infestation in the bulbs. They were planted this spring and I suspect they came that way rather than something they got after being planted. They were the only bulbs (so far) that I've had a problem with. Well, let me re-phrase that. They were the only bulbs I had a virus in. I've had plenty of other problems with insects and weather.

Next year will be different. I plan to start using Bonide every 2 weeks and Messenger every 3 weeks. I just started using the Messenger this week and I'm still using separate products for insects and fungal problems. The Bonide is suppose to prevent both insect and fungal. The Messenger is suppose to help boost a plants immune system plus there are reports of increased vigor and blooming. Too soon for me to say whether that's true or not, but people are raving about it. I have a friend at work who uses the Bonide and he hasn't been having any problems. He gets it at Bachman's.

It is time for resolutions after a year like this one. Good advice - I will be looking into both. Anything that will make them more immune to the onslaught of who-knows-what is a good thing.

I just had a different response to the problem - canceled my order for lilies for the fall! Don't need any more problems at the moment!

I can understand how you feel, Caitlin. That's why I gave up on Dahlias many years ago. However, I planted about 18 different ones this year and hope for a different outcome.

Well, good news! I found the little buggers and they were only down the stem of the Jubileos to about 6" above the soil level. Lost one Asiatic where they had burrowed down too far and my original Casa Blanca was tunneled down below the soil level, but not into the main bulb, so I left it in there and we'll see. Looks like they were corn borers. What was interesting, is they seem to travel up and down, rather than just chewing their way in one direction from where they entered the stem. One of them was still housed in the upper stem of one of the Jubileos I had cut off and had in a vase in the house. I wasn't going to check those because they had been in water the whole time, but decided to just to be sure I wasn't letting something loose in the house to feed on orchids!
[I now know what the moth looks like as a newborn, too. Flat, bright white little things that move very fast. There were some of those in or on one of the stems that I cut open. They were on the board that I was operating on when I saw them. No photo, sorry - squished them in a hurry lest they get away.] (EDIT: Nope, these were white flies. Duh.)
Now, if I can just keep these guys out of the cut surface of the lilies I had to cut down.

Here is the full-grown culprit.

This message was edited Jul 12, 2006 2:05 PM

This is the way the inside of the stem looked on the worst one.

At least now I will know what to watch for and can clobber them before they get too far along, I hope. Thanks for all the input - not sure I would have tried this without your support and I certainly learned a lot by getting in there and cutting. The first "find" just spurred me on to finish the job. Thanks everyone. Let's hope we can all be borer-free next year!

Lily

I ended up finding 4 more. None had gotten to the bulb. I noticed the same thing you did about them traveling up and down. The worst damage I saw was when one had gone all the way to the top of an L.A. Hybrid, where the individual blooms separate from the main stem, they had hollowed out that whole area. That was the first lily I noticed because the blooms opened tiny and deformed.
I agree that this thread was very helpful and, I hope we never have this problem again!
Vicki