Attention New England gardeners

[iris lilies]

I want to tell you all up there in New England something about lilies. If you grow lilies, if your neighbors grow lilies, if your friends grow lilies, be aware and tell others that the red lily beetle has mostly been eradicated. However —and this is where we all need you your help – when you see a red lily beetle, let it be. Unless of course it is chomping away on your one single lily plant, but that’s really YOUR problem isn’t it? To have just one Lily would be very wrong. You need a row of lilies at minimum! Ha ha.
Anyway… We want to keep a small population of red lily beetle around in New England so that its newly introduced predators have something to feed on. The predator is some sort of larval predator. I don’t remember what it is. The red lily beetles were decimating lily collections in Canada and the Northeast, and it was heading West, my way.

The North American Lily Society along with others funded Research at one of the New England universities to identify this new predator and introduce it. It’s been very successful.


Keep it up New England!

[rosarugosa]

Wow, good to know. I like lilies, but I avoid them due to their extreme toxicity for cats. I have a small clump of tiger lilies that I was thinking of removing, but maybe I'll keep them there as bait plants, and just continue to exercise caution.

[iris lilies]

Wow, good to know. I like lilies, but I avoid them due to their extreme toxicity for cats. I have a small clump of tiger lilies that I was thinking of removing, but maybe I'll keep them there as bait plants, and just continue to exercise caution.
Thanks Rosa for doing your part!

My guess without scientific back up is that red lily beetle probably isn’t all that keen on Tiger lilies ( Lilium tigurnum aka L. lancifolium) Because they are native to North America, and these red beetles are imported from another continent. But that’s just my guess. It has been shown to avoid hybrids one generation out from L. henryii.

But keep your tiger lilies! They’re pleasant little plants. There’s a theory out there that they spread virus to other lilies when they themselves don’t get it, but I’m not sure how true that is.

[herbgeek]

Sorry IL, I am not sacrificing my gorgeous Asiastic lilies. They can have my tiger lilies/day lilies out by the road which are quite hardy anyways, but I will continue to pick off and destroy those buggers off the lovely fragrant ones.

[iris lilies]

Sorry IL, I am not sacrificing my gorgeous Asiastic lilies. They can have my tiger lilies/day lilies out by the road which are quite hardy anyways, but I will continue to pick off and destroy those buggers off the lovely fragrant ones.
Herbgeek…thwarting science right and left!

haha, Just kidding you. I guess you will do what you’re going to do whether I like it or not.

[rosarugosa]

I've seen the red beetles do serious damage to the foliage, so I do think they find them tasty.

[catherine]

I don't think I've ever seen one--do you have a good website where I can learn more? And what's the predator? My neighbor has a huge tiger lily patch. I was thinking of introducing some native lilies down at the lakeshore. I'll definitely keep this in mind!

[catherine]

Just found this fact sheet: https://ag.umass.edu/landscape/fact-sheets/lily-leaf-beetle

I see that it's a wasp that may be a key predator and it makes me sad because my neighbors and my children pressured us to get rid of our wasp stump. Those wasps never bothered me, and I liked watching them go in and out of their stump home. And I knew that the only thing they are good for is pest control in the garden. Oh well, if they come back, I'm going to keep my mouth shut.

[iris lilies]

I've seen the red beetles do serious damage to the foliage, so I do think they find them tasty.
Interesting g! Thank you.

[iris lilies]

Just found this fact sheet: https://ag.umass.edu/landscape/fact-sheets/lily-leaf-beetle

I see that it's a wasp that may be a key predator and it makes me sad because my neighbors and my children pressured us to get rid of our wasp stump. Those wasps never bothered me, and I liked watching them go in and out of their stump home. And I knew that the only thing they are good for is pest control in the garden. Oh well, if they come back, I'm going to keep my mouth shut.

we’ve had nest of wasps in our community Garden off and on, and as long as they are in a section that is a way for most human activity, it’s fine.


These red lily beetles are hideous because they pile their feces on top of their back to make them even more unpalatable to birds. Without are the feces they are kind of pretty But still we don’t want them around here.