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Meet the Red Lily Leaf Beetle

23 Jun

Alright ornamental plant lovers, this is one nasty BAD bug! At least it is bad when it comes to your lily flowers…

I saw this little guy hanging out on my kale and collard greens so I was immediately suspicious at first as to what he was doing there. It didn’t seem like he was eating anything however. He was more-so scoping the place out, looking for lilies probably.

The bright-red lily leaf beetle, Lilioceris lilii, is a pretty easy one to spot. They are native to Europe and turned up in eastern Mass. in 1992. They LOVE to eat the leaves of lilies and fritillaria. If they are not controlled, they can kill your plants.

(An important thing to note is they only eat true lilies, those of the Lilium genus, including Asiatic, Easter, & Oriental lilies. Don’t worry about your daylilies, you know, the one that you see growing EVERYWHERE. Those are in the genus Hemerocallis and are not true lilies.)

Lily leaf beetles lay reddish-orange eggs on the underside of lily and fritillaria leaves. It is the just hatched larva that causes the most devastation so be on the look out! Because these bugs are imports, they have no native predators here. The University of Rhode Island researchers have traveled to Europe and collected some larva of the parasitic wasps, a natural predator of the lily leaf beetles. They are currently introducing the wasp to the region in hopes that this will help curb the population of the red lily leaf beetle. So far, it seems to be working out.

In the meantime, stay on the look out for these red little bugs on your lily plants and PLEASE! do not mistake lady bugs for the red lily leaf beetle. Lady bugs are very beneficial to have around in your garden! take a good look at the pictures and make sure you know your bugs!  Pick the red lily leaf beetle adults, eggs, and larva off your lilies, making sure you get rid of them. You can drop them in a can of vegetable oil or water with a lid.

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Meet the House Centipede

5 Apr

GOOD BUG!

…that is… if you don’t mind sharing your home with them…

BAD BUG!

…if these freak you out too much and they eat too many “good bugs”

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WARNING!

IF YOU ARE SQUIMISH ABOUT LOOKING A PICTURES OF FREAKY LOOKING INSECTS, DO NOT SCROLL DOWN!

IF YOU CAN HANDLE IT, CONTINUE :)

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READY?

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The House Centipede is an insectivore; it kills and feeds on spiders, bedbugs, termites, cockroaches, silverfish, ants, and other household arthropods. They administer venom through modified legs by stinging/biting their prey. Technically, yes, they are a house bug but I have seen them hiding under rocks along the stone foundation by our garden enough to find them worthy of a post.

House Centipedes can live its entire life inside a building, usually the ground levels of homes and they LOVE damp basements. They are generally considered harmless to humans. Bites (stings) are not common. Stings are generally no worse than a bee’s sting, with its venom causing redness and mild to severe swelling.

I can vouch for the mild side effects of their bites/stings because I had the unfortunate opportunity of getting bit by one on my neck… in my sleep… yeah…

I woke up to a mildly swollen, red, itchy neck and saw a tiny puncture mark… yeah…

After I got over freaking out at the fact that one of these things was crawling on me in my sleep, the final assessment was that the side effects were not all that bad. I probably swatted at it in my sleep and it tried to defend itself…

On a side note, I am very happy to say our bedroom is now upstairs (far from where they like to hang out) and there are no more constructions holes in the ceiling of our bedroom RIGHT over our bed that they can fall through (which is pretty much what happened).

SO! Technically, house centipedes are good at ridding your house of other insect pests but you can be the judge as to whether it is worth it. Around the garden they can probably prove to be pretty useful as well to help get rid of pests… but they may want to eat some of the “good bugs” as well…

I’ll let you make the call if you think they are good or bad and if you want to keep them around.

As for myself, I keep them around just for the entertainment of watching our 100lb, ungraceful dog try to chase them as they dart across the floor.

:D

Happy Pest Controlling! ;)

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Meet the Lady Bug

29 Feb

GOOD BUG!

The lady bug is one of the top 5 bugs that you WANT to have in your garden. The #1 reason being it that they eat aphids. Aphids are smaller and they can be green or red. If you have an aphid problem it usually looks like the stem of your plant grew little spikes or something like this:

Aphids  (BAD BUG) suck the life out of your plants (literally) and lady bugs suck the life out the aphids (LITERALLY). If you unleash a container of hunger lady bugs on an aphid-infested plant, watch the carnage begin!

Lady bugs are red, but contrary to popular belief, they are not ALWAYS covered in spots. Note the variations of lady bugs below:

Some are deep red, some lighter red, some covered with black spots, others, no spots at all. The sure way to tell it is a lady bug is (A) It is red and (B) It has the white spots in the front that kind of look like eyes.

Try not to get confused with other bugs that may resemble lady bugs, such as the Mexican Bean Beetle - Same pattern as the Lady Bug but yellow instead of red.

So get a good look! Theses lil’ ladies are good to have around!

Meet the Mexican Bean Beetle

25 Feb

BAD BUG!

If you happen to see insects that look very much like lady bugs except they are yellow…and they happen to be eating away at your bean plants, you have just met the Mexican Bean Beetle. These little buggers are one the the most destructive bean plant eating beetles out there.

Mexican Bean Beetle

If you did not spot the yellow eggs on the underside of your bean plants then you may see something that looks like this on your bean leaves:

If left alone, they will turn into something that looks like this:

And then they grow up to look like this… and they multiply:

I inspect the underside of the leaves on my bean plants once the leaves really start to form and I try to pick off the eggs before they hatch. If I miss them – I pick off the larvae… and if I miss those, I pick off the adults before they destroy the whole bean plant.

Here is a link to more information on th Mexican Bean Beetle as well as some tips on how to get rid of them:

http://www.planetnatural.com/site/xdpy/kb/mexican-bean-beetle.html

Meet the Cross-Striped Cabbageworm

26 Jul

BAD BUG!
This little guy and his friends were totally demolishing my collard greens. I had to hand pick them off before they ate everything!

HERE is a link to a PDF that tells you how to deal with these little pests!

Meet the (larva of the) Black Swallowtail Butterfly

25 Jul

GOOD BUG!

The larva of the Black Swallowtail Butterfly (Papilio polyxenes) goes through several stages and where their apperance changes. This picture here is during the third instar stage…

The eggs of the Black Swallowtail are typically laid on garden plants from the carrot family, including dill, fennel, Queen Anne’s lace, and parsley.

He’s a good bug, despite the fact I found him feasting on my carrot greens. No real harm was done. The Carrots are doing great and now there are beautiful Black Swallowtail Butterflies in the garden.

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