pill bugs are eating my iris

why are pill bugs eating my iris . they are just eating little circles here and there . my mom says it is because its been so dry and they are looking for moisture . does this happen for any one ?

I have never seen this but anything is possible. Does it look like the little circles are severe enough to kill the rhizome or maybe promote rot? Maybe it won't do enough damage to warrant putting pesticides in the garden which I try not to do.
Every year it is always something.

no it not that bad . and the spot dries up pretty fast . i wouldnt know what it was but i caught them doing it . they are good for breaking down compost. and its only happening in one bed . the bed closest to some composting sod . thats where they are coming from but i thought it was weird that they didnt stay under the sod clumps amd migrated to my iris bed .

I thought the same thing was happening to my iris I was thinning a couple of weeks ago and kind of dismissed it thinking I was just a little crazy cause I had never heard of it before. Your Mom might be right at the time we hadn't had rain for about 3 or 4 weeks and I had to stop digging up iris cause the ground was just so hard if I got them up I couldn't prepare a new bed.

i went out today and there were crumbs next to the rhizome and a shallow hole that was smaller than dime size . im starting to get mad because its n my new ones . i wish they would leave them alone for a while

Iris bores eat iris also. They live in the leaf and then go to the rhizone and feast. My understanding was that they do leave the rihzone. I don't know if they go back to the soil or turn into a moth. Can't remember now.

I've had problems with pill bugs too. They come out at night to feed, mostly on decaying organic matter, which is good, but they will feed on tender seedlings, iris rhizomes etc. They seem to isolate a few rhizomes and return to them every night. The simplest way to stop them is a slight covering of soil on the rhizome until they decide to go elsewhere. For those of us in warm climates or with very sandy soil, a "little" soil over the rhizome is actually beneficial. Sevin dust applied to the rhizome will also stop them, but that would be a last resort, as I prefer keeping pesticides out of my garden. Haven't tried powered cayenne pepper, but it might work too.

Good Luck, Dan

Iris bore insect begins as eggs laid late in fall on iris foliage and rhizomes. In spring, the next stage burrows into the foliage and rhizomes and develops through the summer into a gray, wormlike creature around an inch long. In early summer, you might be able to see tracings where they are traveling around inside the leaves. By mid summer the borers are in the rhizomes. In late summer the borers leave the irises and pupate in the soil until fall when they hatch into a small, indistinct moth that starts the cycle over again by laying new eggs on the irises. The foliage on irises that is affected by iris borers will have yellow and brown edges and the rhizomes will have holes chewed through them.

Usually the diet of pill bugs is decaying vegetative waste not live plant tissue. They will, however, eat live plant tissue if there is not enough other food available,

Iris28-

Do your holes look like this picture? I have this problem with new rhizomes from the West Coast just planted when it's hot and dry here. By the second year, they've toughened up and are no longer full of moisture so I never see it in older plants. I have had to put comet with bleach on the chewed parts during their first winter here to keep the spots from rotting.

The culprit for me is cutworm. If you go out VERY early in the morning you might see them before they go back into the soil.

it does look like that , i have seen the pill bugs in the hole . ive never seen iris bore holes or worms here . it is on a select few of my huge fat new california grown iris . ive covered them all now . i have lots and lots of pill bugs this year for some reason , they are in my pots and everywhere .

The cutworms are in the soil during the day, so you never see them. It took me a few years to finally find one chomping away. I'd make sure the holes are completely dried and uncovered before winter because I had a rot problem around the holes. Lowes and Home Depot sell a granule that you can sprinkle on the soil for cutworm.

Here's the little bugger:

I wonder if neem oil would work for you,
JIM

is that the same thing as a bag worm ? well they fall out of the trees though so i guess not. its only in the bed nearest the composting sod pile . i should try neem i t might deter them at least . oh i found a pill bug in my living room today how weird . did you know they are in the lobster family , arthropod or something . they have gill like structures that need moisture to breathe

no, cutworms are different than bagworms.

iris28, try watering your compost pile if they are needing a drink maybe they will go back to the composting sod?

So far knock on wood I have not seem many buggers, I have seen that cutworm, very few, but I flick them out in the road to get run over or eaten by other critters, got to keep that food chain going. LOLOL

i do that . i put them where birds can get them , grubs though , i havnt seen a cut worm.

I am seeing a few of my new irises with slotted holes completely thru
the leaves. Could this be your cutworms? If so, I still have some acephate
I could spray on them. I hate to use it because this is the butterfly season
here and that stuff can travel in even a light breeze.

Hey Jerry, I too have a few with slotted holes and think the culprit to be either slugs or crickets I see only a few very small slugs but no slime trail up the leaves so with ton's of crickets I believe its crickets.

These are mainly in my temp beds with some of the exchange irises from
the swap of late July. I don't want to lose any of them. They are still 100%
alive and growing. I too have tons of crickets all over the yard. I have seen
a strange jumper which appears to be fatter than a regular cricket. May be
from my free smorgasbord. As a last resort, I will give them a shot of sure
death. Acephate kills anything ingesting it and it loves sucking/chewing insects.