Garden

[wagirl]

So what little crawly monster could be eating my fragrant lilies? Not all of them just a couple pots. There are holes in the leaves and so far the buds are still good. Have sprayed them with a natural bug spray----don't see any critters on one of them but the other it looks like teeny white dots. any suggestions?

thx

[BirkiLady]

Mites and aphids? Use the hose to clean the plant(s) with plain water to remove the offender. Hopefully, they will fall off and not return.

If that doesn't work, try a little Dawn dish soap mixed in a bucket of water and carefully clean each leaf and stem. 

[JustJazzmom]

Google lily beetles.

[x Hedge]

I was going to say slugs or earwigs until I got to the end of your post.

Cabbage moth's eggs look like tiny white dots.

You know Cabbage moths, they're creamy white, only abt one and a half inches wide, and flutter erratically.

They're voracious chewers in the worm stage, and you must look very carefully because they are always the exact same shade of green as the plant they're eating!

They prefer anything in the Cabbage family, PLUS several ornamental plants. I planted a variety of flowers one year and the Cabbage Moth laid more eggs than I could find. The worms ate it to ragged bits.

For slugs or earwigs, I go out at night with a powerful flashlight and a x-x-long tweezer. I pluck those slugs and earwigs off in mid -chew and stomp 'em.

[x Hedge]

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@BirkiLady wrote:

Mites and aphids? Use the hose to clean the plant(s) with plain water to remove the offender. Hopefully, they will fall off and not return.

If that doesn't work, try a little Dawn dish soap mixed in a bucket of water and carefully clean each leaf and stem. 

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Mites and aphids are suckers that transmit diseases and suck the fluids out. Given enough of them the plant will wilt, then collapse.

But they don't chew holes.

I've Never been able to "spray" them off of leaves. I hold the leaf between my thumb and forefinger and 'rub' the leaf gently, smushing the mites and aphids.