Lilies: HELP!!!!!!!!!!, 1 by lily_digger

lily_digger wrote:
Well, good news! I found the little buggers and they were only down the stem of the Jubileos to about 6" above the soil level. Lost one Asiatic where they had burrowed down too far and my original Casa Blanca was tunneled down below the soil level, but not into the main bulb, so I left it in there and we'll see. Looks like they were corn borers. What was interesting, is they seem to travel up and down, rather than just chewing their way in one direction from where they entered the stem. One of them was still housed in the upper stem of one of the Jubileos I had cut off and had in a vase in the house. I wasn't going to check those because they had been in water the whole time, but decided to just to be sure I wasn't letting something loose in the house to feed on orchids!
[I now know what the moth looks like as a newborn, too. Flat, bright white little things that move very fast. There were some of those in or on one of the stems that I cut open. They were on the board that I was operating on when I saw them. No photo, sorry - squished them in a hurry lest they get away.] (EDIT: Nope, these were white flies. Duh.)
Now, if I can just keep these guys out of the cut surface of the lilies I had to cut down.

Here is the full-grown culprit.

This message was edited Jul 12, 2006 2:05 PM