Mine are all in pots, which several people such as Alberto Castillo, will tell you isn't the best way to grow them unless you grow them in very large pots (5 gal. or larger) ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Hi Gang, More good advice about growing rainlilies. I guess I'll have to move my plants up to larger containers. Maybe this winter will provide the time. I do like the rainlilies, and I now I think I've been mistreating them. They don't have many problems, even with my small pots and stingy watering schedule. However, they are devoured by the Eastern Lubber Grasshopper, which are truly beautiful but alien-looking insects. The instars (juveniles are black and red, or black and yellow). The adults are a psychadelic mix of yellow, red, orange, black, tan, and sometimes a hint of green. Both adults and juveniles devour amaryllids. Rainlilies are mowed to the ground unless I keep control of the grasshoppers. The insects actually remove all foliage and flower buds, and rainliles seem as if they are "gone." Once I put out insecticide the rainliles come back. Eastern Lubber Grasshoppers like Crinum, Hippeastrum, Hymenocallis, and all sorts of related plants. I think they survive from year-to-year in my yard because I won't put insecticides in the low areas of my yard, the places where runoff can enter nearby ponds. LINK: Photo, Close-up of Adult and Juvenile http://www.opuntiads.com/pests/lubber1.jpg LINK: Photo, Feeding Frenzy, Juveniles Devouring Hymenocallis near the Trinkity River in Texas http://www.opuntiads.com/pests/lubber2.jpg They will eat leaves, flowers, seed pods, seeds, and perhaps slow-moving people. Cordially, Joe Conroe, TX The weather has cooled a bit and maybe the fall-blooming bulbs will begin their shows. A few oxblood lilies have come up but the heat fried the blooms last week.
