Help! Lily beetles

[Bratfink]

My beautiful, gorgeous gigantic 5 year old lily is just starting to come up and I found a bright ted beetle on it. Have googled and it's a lily beetle and nothing really seems to tell me how to get rid of the buggers. Ive disposed of it but it's laid pooy eggs on the leaves already and they're only a few inches out of the ground

Any miracle cures?

There's one on my fig too!

Provado make something that will kill them. If you want to avoid chemical warfare, though, you will have to pick off the beetles and squish them and then remove all their revolting poo-covered eggs.

Further advice from the Royal Horticultural Society here

lily beetles are the devil's own work. the poo are larvae and they move - the larvae disguise themselves under their own poo and they wander about your plants eating them voraciously and behaving disgustingly. The beetles themselves seem to spend all their time Doing It and making more disgusting babies. you have to creep up on them otherwise they hurl themselves to the ground on their backs and you can't see them. and they make a funny noise. and they are really hard and need a good bash to squish them.

If you won't poison them you need a box of disposable gloves and to pick off all the larvae and squish them as soon as you see them. nothing will eat them. and keep a couple of old bricks to hand to squash the adults. Worth paying the kids to capture the beetles for you to kill (but make sure the children do not fall in love with the beetles)

ewwww - I am so glad I didn't get the lilies I was contemplating

The beetles are a very pretty red, but mercy shall not be theirs - get squishing! They do breed like buggery and the larvae can eat the tubers too. That said our lilys do OK each year - as long as we keep up with the squishing.

OETWP is right - they're poo-covered larvae, not poo-covered eggs. I wasn't reading what I typed.

I've been finding beetles for about a fortnight now, but as they do (as OETWP says) spend all their time in beetle orgies, it is quite easy to catch them unawares and then stamp on them. The lilies are so gorgeous it's worth it, I think.

wow thansk for all the info

i agree, they are deceptively pretty things considering their foul ways (the beetles not their shitty offspring).

i have been squishing and squashing, but i'm not sure i'll be able to keep on top of it, i've been pulling off the leaves with lots of larvae on and stamping on them

i feel bad though, these are the first things i have ever conciously killed, i even rescue spiders and wasps from certain death situations

we used to live in the middle of nowehere and were never botehred by them

i blame the nighbours