Iris borer photo?

oooooooooo, Pirl, I am with you on those slimy slugs.. I put them on the driveway and pour salt on them.. yuk!!! They love my hostas
Elaine

Well I donno how in the world it got there, but I just found a slug in our bathroom!!!!

Tammy, put him out in that freezing cold. Critter, still looking for borers..
Elaine

I flushed the little buger down the toilet! LOL

Elaine, I hope you don't find any! But if you do, TBGDN put some good suggestions on that journal link for finding them and getting them out.

I'd rather have used my scissors on the slug before flushing or I'd have horrible thoughts in the middle of the night - ewww!

TBGDN, thank you so much for the addition of your photos to today's article! A couple of people have mentioned to me that your journal entries were really useful to them in figuring out how to tackle an infestation of borers in their bed.

http://davesgarden.com/guides/articles/view/832/

Jill,
Great article; very well done! I'm sure it will be a big help to others. Keep up the good work. -T

Thanks, T!

It helped a lot that I had some more experienced irisarians willing to check to make sure I hadn't mis-stated anything or left out something important. I've learned so much from this forum and from the folks in my local Iris Society.

Thank you all!

Jill, that was a good article. I enjoyed reading it.
thanks for sharing,
Elaine

I'm just hoping I don't ever have to put all the information I've learned about borers to serious use... As soon as it stops raining, I'm getting out there to get the rest of the old leaves and litter out of that bed! :-)

Hey Critter, do you think we need to lift existing mulch? At the end of the year, I put some grass clippings around them. Do you think that was harmful?

I don't know if borer eggs would be laid on grass clippings or not, although I tend to think they'd be more likely to lay eggs on dead leaves. However, it's not a good idea to put any kind of mulch directly on the rhizomes, so you might want to at least pull it back from the clumps... anything that holds moisture right on the rhizome can lead to rot. Mulching between the clumps shouldn't be an issue.

Okay thanks. We've got some melting this week, so i should be able to get out and take a look.