The first time I saw a lily beetle was in a friend’s garden, and it was - of course - chomping on a lily. I drew her attention to it, as she’s a keen naturalist, always interested in and supportive of all the creatures that creep and crawl.
She identified it for me, and I remember thinking what a pretty little beast it was, with its glossy scarlet wing covers contrasting so nicely with its coal-black head, legs and underside.
But that was before I started growing lilies myself.
I was tempted by those glorious packs of lily bulbs. And after several futile attempts to grow them in a perennial bed (thanks to slugs), I finally had some success in an old aluminium cattle feeder.
Then, last year, my lilies were discovered by those ghastly lily beetles. They must have been there long before I noticed them, and they managed to do a lot of damage. I went to war immediately -picking off the adults and dealing with their disgusting, excrement-covered larvae. Fortunately, I managed to get the situation under control simply by removing them by hand.
My friend Vee’s lilies also came under attack, but she found the larvae too repulsive to deal with. Lily beetle grubs use their slimy black poo as a form of camouflage, but that doesn’t deter me. Vee’s lilies were devastated; mine are, so far, doing OK.
This year, I started early. I inspect the lilies every day - sometimes twice a day - and I’ve already found a few. Lily beetles have another cunning trick: if disturbed, they drop from the leaf or bud they’re chewing and contrive to land on their backs, hiding their shiny red wing covers from predators (me). So I creep up on them.
Picture it: the human predator tiptoeing across the yard to dispatch tiny beetles. A cruel practice, perhaps - but one I can justify, because lily beetles are not native to these islands. They began as a small, localised infestation in the south of England in the early 1900s, and were first reported in Northern Ireland in 2002.
My naturalist friend was quite unconcerned that her lilies were being attacked - she believes that invertebrates matter more than cultivated flowers. Perhaps she’s right. But that is gardening: always a balancing act between admiration and intervention. I still think lily beetles are lovely, in a villainous sort of way. But pretty or not, if they come for my lilies, I will find them and... you know the rest.
