Scottish Rock Garden Club Forum

Cultivation => Cultivation Problems => Topic started by: ian mcenery on April 08, 2011, 07:24:27 PM

Title: Lily beetle
Post by: ian mcenery on April 08, 2011, 07:24:27 PM
Be warned this pest is out in force.

I found 5 in this self set seedling of Cardiocrinum gigantium and these 2 in Frittilaria imperialis. Now what are they doing. Answers on a postcard  please  ::)

All now sprayed with Provado ultimate bug killer  ;)
Title: Re: Lily beetle
Post by: Giles on April 08, 2011, 08:07:17 PM
..checking the small print on their prenuptial agreement?
Title: Re: Lily beetle
Post by: ian mcenery on April 08, 2011, 08:59:47 PM
..checking the small print on their prenuptial agreement?
;D ;D ;D
Title: Re: Lily beetle
Post by: johnw on April 08, 2011, 09:08:23 PM
Now what are they doing. Answers on a postcard  please  ::)

No fence in sight Ian so you may have to ask Lesley.  She's an expert in these matters. ;)

johnw
Title: Re: Lily beetle
Post by: Lesley Cox on April 09, 2011, 10:57:36 PM
I was only going to remark that the post office - here at least - doesn't permit the sending of rude pictures, or not on a postcard anyway. Better put suggestions in an envelope. Could be back scratching.
Title: Re: Lily beetle
Post by: fleurbleue on April 10, 2011, 12:30:18 AM
For the first time, I found them on Fritillaria persica  >:( Lilies don't be enough for them !
Title: Re: Lily beetle
Post by: Brian Ellis on April 10, 2011, 09:53:19 AM
Well this was on F. uva vulpa and imperealis too :-\
Title: Re: Lily beetle
Post by: Gail on April 10, 2011, 08:49:38 PM
I've removed several from my Madonna lilies already this year.
Title: Re: Lily beetle
Post by: mark smyth on April 10, 2011, 09:08:43 PM
Just had an email from Harold McBride. He has found 100 this year in his garden. Other than Frits and lilies what do the feed on?
Title: Re: Lily beetle
Post by: Lesley Cox on April 10, 2011, 10:38:33 PM
While I moan about the plants we're not allowed to have, I'm happy to be deprived of this little guy in the red battle dress.
Title: Re: Lily beetle
Post by: Maggi Young on April 11, 2011, 10:06:31 AM
Just had an email from Harold McBride. He has found 100 this year in his garden. Other than Frits and lilies what do the feed on?

 100.... already???!!!  Good grief..... hunting them must be a full time job.
The world seems over full of hungry, fecund, plant chewing insects, doesn't it? 
It can't just be that we are paranoid, surely?  :-\ :-\ :-X
Title: Re: Lily beetle
Post by: art600 on April 11, 2011, 12:10:38 PM
Well this was on F. uva vulpa and imperealis too :-\

I would gladly sacrifice uva vulpis if it meant that the rest of the Frits were safe  :)
Title: Re: Lily beetle
Post by: gote on April 11, 2011, 06:22:34 PM
Just had an email from Harold McBride. He has found 100 this year in his garden. Other than Frits and lilies what do the feed on?
Cardiocrinum and Nomocharis.      >:( >:( >:(  I have never seen them on Notholirion. :) :) :)
Göte
Title: Re: Lily beetle
Post by: Brian Ellis on April 11, 2011, 06:38:20 PM
Thanks for the reminder Göte, I mustn't forget to check the cardiocrinum!
Title: Re: Lily beetle
Post by: Lesley Cox on April 11, 2011, 11:44:29 PM
Well this was on F. uva vulpa and imperealis too :-\

I would gladly sacrifice uva vulpis if it meant that the rest of the Frits were safe  :)

But if there were no F. uva-vulpis, they might go on to something more choice. After all if I couldn't have fish I'd happily try caviar ;D
Title: Re: Lily beetle
Post by: Brian Ellis on April 12, 2011, 09:59:02 AM
Quote
But if there were no F. uva-vulpis, they might go on to something more choice.

...and of course they do Lesley, F. eduardii yesterday!  Our dear next door neighbour loves Lilies and buys more every year, her latest comment was "I don't get them on mine", that is of course because she does not look and then they take a trip to our garden for a break :-\
Title: Re: Lily beetle
Post by: Armin on April 12, 2011, 03:46:25 PM
I caught a single one on a hyacinth!
Title: Re: Lily beetle
Post by: Banksia_Man on April 12, 2011, 08:54:57 PM
They like crown imperials too.

I think I've had 7 (beetles) so far this spring.
Title: Re: Lily beetle
Post by: gote on April 13, 2011, 08:45:47 AM
I caught a single one on a hyacinth!
Was it feeding? I have killed them on other plants too but I believe they only were reposing after feeding on my lilies.
Göte
Title: Re: Lily beetle
Post by: Armin on April 13, 2011, 08:06:29 PM
Göte,
I think it accidentally landed there - at least there was no time to cause a leaf damage.
It's in the beetle heaven now.
Title: Re: Lily beetle
Post by: Brian Ellis on April 13, 2011, 10:15:33 PM
They have also been known to nibble the alstroemeria before now ::)
Title: Re: Lily beetle
Post by: David Nicholson on April 14, 2011, 10:08:11 AM
You don't want your alstromerias nibbled!
Title: Re: Lily beetle
Post by: Brian Ellis on April 14, 2011, 10:13:40 AM
I can't think of many worse fates David ;)
Title: Re: Lily beetle
Post by: Lesley Cox on April 14, 2011, 09:42:15 PM
My God, that would be painful :o
Title: Re: Lily beetle
Post by: shelagh on April 21, 2011, 05:41:33 PM
Seen sunning themselves in Bury today, got the finger and thumb treatment ;D
Title: Re: Lily beetle
Post by: arisaema on April 21, 2011, 05:49:16 PM
Just had an email from Harold McBride. He has found 100 this year in his garden. Other than Frits and lilies what do the feed on?
Cardiocrinum and Nomocharis.      >:( >:( >:(  I have never seen them on Notholirion. :) :) :)
Göte

...and Smilcaina + Maianthemum, I've seen them feed on both S. stellata and the native M. bifolium.
Title: Re: Lily beetle
Post by: shelagh on April 22, 2011, 10:00:44 AM
Brian's reply to that is they can have all the Maianthemum bifolia they want, why don't they just get on with it.  He has been ripping it out of a border for weeks now, a real THUG.
Title: Re: Lily beetle
Post by: David Nicholson on April 22, 2011, 07:21:56 PM
Destroyed my first one today.
Title: Re: Lily beetle
Post by: Luc Gilgemyn on April 22, 2011, 09:21:29 PM
My count is at 14 David !  ;)
Title: Re: Lily beetle
Post by: mark smyth on April 27, 2011, 07:48:14 AM
Eagle eye Fermi spotted them in Margaret Glynns garden yesterday. Margaret said "I dont have lily beetles". We killed 15 or more on only a few lilies
Title: Re: Lily beetle
Post by: Brian Ellis on April 27, 2011, 09:25:38 AM
Eagle eye Fermi spotted them in Margaret Glynns garden yesterday. Margaret said "I dont have lily beetles". We killed 15 or more on only a few lilies

i would think most people who grow lilies in the UK now have the b****y things.  They seem to have come to a lull in our garden at the moment so it is a case of inspecting the underside of the leaves for fine red eggs to stop the next outbreak in its tracks.  We inspect them every time we walk past, (at least six or seven times a day) which makes a trip to the top of the garden a slow one!  It is my great delight to discover them when they are in the act of reproduction - at least they die with a smile on their faces. ;)
Title: Re: Lily beetle
Post by: Darren on April 27, 2011, 04:47:42 PM
We have been spared until this year (apart from a single one in 2009) but the count is up to 7 now. They are being cunning and ignoring the lilies and the obvious frits in the frame. So far there have been 4 on Frit meleagris in a border and 3 on Frit camschatcensis in the ericaceous bed.

Title: Re: Lily beetle
Post by: Lesley Cox on April 27, 2011, 11:19:52 PM
Someone better use a high pressure water blaster on Fermi before he comes home. :o
Title: Re: Lily beetle
Post by: monocotman on April 28, 2011, 09:27:08 AM
Hi,

anybody notice that lily beetles have definite favourites?
They much prefer my martagon and western american ( pardalinum) hybrids to the large OT types like Scheherazade and Silk Road.
Maybe the preferred types have thinner and more easily digested leaves.
I've given up spraying these types with provado as they get so few beetles I can pick them off,

Regards,

David
Title: Re: Lily beetle
Post by: Diane Clement on April 28, 2011, 12:50:56 PM
anybody notice that lily beetles have definite favourites?
They much prefer my martagon and western american ( pardalinum) hybrids to the large OT types like Scheherazade and Silk Road.

They certainly seem to go for Fritillaria pallidiflora here.  What I don't know is how they find them in a garden full of other plants  ::)
Title: Re: Lily beetle
Post by: johnw on April 28, 2011, 10:14:12 PM
They're out here already. I saw one gnawing on the Frit at a friend's yesterday, stem severed.

johnw
Title: Re: Lily beetle
Post by: johnw on April 28, 2011, 10:32:19 PM
I've given up spraying these types with provado as they get so few beetles I can pick them off,
Regards,David

We forgot to drench one year and they came in droves. The next year just a few compared to what friend's see in their gardens.

They have a fondness for bulbiferum and pyrenaicum, however I think martagons are #1 on their radar.  They hit polyphyllum hard that year and I suspect they spread virus as well. One of the Nomocharis they prefer over others, I'll try to record which. They can decimate Cardiocrinums too.

johnw
Title: Re: Lily beetle
Post by: Martin Baxendale on April 28, 2011, 10:40:27 PM
I find the vast majority are on martagons in my garden. None at all on thick-leaved orientals or oriental-trumpets so far.
Title: Re: Lily beetle
Post by: mark smyth on April 28, 2011, 11:00:40 PM
Fermi, Will and I were in the botanical gardens in Dublin. No lily beetles there
Title: Re: Lily beetle
Post by: chasw on April 30, 2011, 10:26:48 PM
Jan even found some on the paeonie's this evening  :'(  :'(
Title: Re: Lily beetle
Post by: wooden shoe on May 03, 2011, 07:01:49 PM
A giant lily beetle  :o 3 times as big as a normal lily beetle!
I knew they were having a feast on my lilies but I didn't know they were that nutritous.
Happily this one feeds on pollen and the larvea on decayed wood.
Title: Re: Lily beetle
Post by: johnw on May 03, 2011, 08:50:36 PM
A giant lily beetle  :o 3 times as big as a normal lily beetle!
I knew they were having a feast on my lilies but I didn't know they were that nutritous.

Any Cardiocrinum giganteums nearby?  ;)

johnw
Title: Re: Lily beetle
Post by: Martin Baxendale on May 03, 2011, 10:52:33 PM
That's not a lily beetle. It's a cardinal beetle. Larger than a lily beetle, a duller, less shiny red, and serrated antennae. Not a major pest, so no need to squish. Here's a pic from the Natural History Museum website:

http://www.nhm.ac.uk/nature-online/life/insects-spiders/bug-forum/?q=node/224
Title: Re: Lily beetle
Post by: Martin Baxendale on May 03, 2011, 10:54:42 PM
Ah, just re-read your post and it sounds like you already know what it really is  :)
Title: Re: Lily beetle
Post by: wooden shoe on May 04, 2011, 08:01:48 AM
Yep, it's the black-headed cardinal beetle (Pyrochroa coccinea). I let this one roam free and did not let him to the same fate as it's minor brothers the lily beetles.
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