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All Aboard! Members enjoy the garden of Beth |
Click on the link and it will send you to that site directly- don’t worry the Strafford Garden Club Site will still be visible. Links to Useful and Informative Websites Home Gardening at Explore Cornell New England Wild Flower Society Gardener's Supply: Innovative Gardening Solutions American Horticultural Society GardenMart– find your planting zone National Gardening – Kids Gardening Butterfly Gardening and Conservation Garden Web – Be sure to check out New England gardening, garden junk and the seed exchange! Planet Natural...organic gardening supplies and info. Great Sites for Houseplant Information Magazines Links to Local Greenhouses Studley Flower Gardens, Rochester* Wentworth Greenhouses, Rollinsford Crary Waterfalls & Aquatic Nursery, Center Barnstead* Elf’s Landscaping & Garden Center* * Show your Strafford Garden Club membership card
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Lily Leaf Beetles! From Whites Flower Farm Your first step is to identify the creature. The back of the adult beetleis bright scarlet; its head, antennae, legs and underside are black. It measures 1/4" to 3/8" long. If squeezed gently, the beetle makes a squeaking sound, probably intended to scare off predators. The beetle in the larvae stage is quite ugly, with swollen orange, brown, yellow or green bodies and black heads. They carry their excrement on their backs
and look more like bird droppings than beetle grubs. The larvae are smaller than the adults, but can cause much more damage as they generally begin eating
at the base of the plant and work their way up, devouring all but the midribs of
the leaves. They also feed on the buds and flowers. A plant may be killed
outright by an attack, but without foliage, it cannot sustain itself for To eradicate this pest, you need to know something about its life cycle. The beetles over winter as adults in the soil and emerge in spring sometime in late March or April. As temperatures warm in May, the females begin to lay orange-red eggs, 4-10 at a time in irregular lines on the undersides of lower leaves. The eggs hatch in a matter of days and the larvae begin eating immediately. They feed for about 20 days, then enter the soil to transform themselves into adults, which takes about 20 more days. The new adults emerge and feed until fall, although the females will not lay eggs until the following spring. When cold weather comes, they return to the soil until the following spring when they re-emerge and the cycle begins again. To control the infestation, we recommend that you try to handpick the beetles off the plants and drop them into a jar of soapy water. Do this a few times a week until you no longer see them on your plants. If your neighborhood is not infested with these pests, you should be able to eradicate them from your garden in a year or two. When hand picking is not practical, you can spray your plants with insecticide. The least toxic and most environmentally friendly control of Lily Leaf Beetle is Neem, an insecticide made from the extract of the Neem Tree. This repels the adults and is highly effective on newly hatched larvae. It must be applied every 5-7 days after the larvae begins to appear. Important Note: |
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