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No Lily Beetle

Invicta2Invicta2 Posts: 663
in Talkback

This year have found no lily beetles on my Snakehead fritillaries and it is way past their usual time. I did check the plants regularly every spring and destryed any I found but am surprised to find none. Do they over winter in the soil? In that case they may have drowned as I grow the plants in the dampest part of the garden and this winter it has been waterlogged at times [Fritillaries look better for that though}.

Posts

  • Stevo4Stevo4 Posts: 109

    That's funny, Invicta, I was just about to ask the same thing. Everyday I've been out to check the snakes and so far not one single scarlet lily beetle. Mine havn't been water logged so I guess its not that. Maybe the cold spell has slowed them down.image

  • Busy-LizzieBusy-Lizzie Posts: 24,042

    I haven't seen any here in SW France either. Usually they have eaten my Madonna Lilies by now.

    Dordogne and Norfolk. Clay in Dordogne, sandy in Norfolk.
  • Stevo4Stevo4 Posts: 109

    Lizzie, could extinction it be too much to expect.image

  • ObelixxObelixx Posts: 30,087

    They do hibernate in the soil.   This year I've only had a couple of SH frits come back and they're always too early for the beetles to be about.    They usually wait to munch my lilies so beware of tempting fate and thinking they're goners.

    Vendée - 20kms from Atlantic coast.
    "The price good men (and women) pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men (and women)."
    Plato
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