Actually, I have two lily problems and would love advice:
1. I watched a chipmunk climb the long lily stalks last summer and eat the flowers. Sometimes, he carted the flower off.
2. This year something is eating the bulbs and the stalks.
Thanks for any suggestions.
Joyce
chipmunk ate my lily flowers
joyce, put out mth balls around the lillies.
Oh boy, the nonstop battle between gardeners and critters!
This year, I planted lilies in a pot and put chicken wire around the pot to thwart the bunnies. Something snapped off and carted away a stem with three blooms on it. I figure no rabbit could have done that but have been mystified about what critter COULD or WOULD do it. It had to be either a chipmunk or a squirrel. Sigh.
There are some spray-on products marketed for deer and/or rabbit repellancy, but I don't know about chipmunks.
I'm sure my night visitor was a deer. It ate the big buds off my tall plants near the sidewalk/road. It did not come to the plants close to the house. I ran out with my bottle of bitter apple and emptied the bottle. The deer come to my street only at night, and the either eat the entire cluster of buds or each large bud separately. And all this time I've been chasing after that awful red lily beetle that destroyed a lot of plants last year. My lilies aren't usually 3-4 feet tall this time of year, but with the heat wave(s) they seem to be thriving.
Mouse traps w/ peanut butter work on chipmunks. Live traps work on squirrels. Squirrels are supper easy to capture with a bit of apple and peanutbutter smeared on top.
Andy
We had success trapping chipmunks in live traps and relocating them to a forest preserve. No need to kill the little buggers. We used safflower bird seed as bait.
I have cats, they patrol my gardens well and keep things pretty safe. Now, If I could just get them to take down a deer on occasion...
LOL Ticker!
They ate about 10 of my buds last night! I've been waiting for weeks for these buds to open!
Oh, and they dug up my toad lillies that I JUST got from a trade. Boo hoo!
This message was edited Jun 13, 2008 7:39 PM