This year I've been tested with I think just about any thing I could have ever imagined... with my flower beds. Not faring very well here. Iris's what the rot didn't get, a disease did. Now I'm fighting something that is going through my lilies. It's not all of them, but there are quite a few out there that look like these pictures. Does ANYONE recognize this? Do you know what it is & how do I stop it from spreading. I have already sprayed Daconil (sp?) I figured it was worth a shot.


Thanks ahead for any suggestions!

This is the little spot of "Sphinx" and it is battling it's own issues right now

Too much water? Too little water? Heavily fertilized?

Just my thoughts on example #2
When I look at the soil surface--its clean and appears dry. If you're hoeing this to keep it clean--be careful; you will easily damage the stem roots just beneath the surface which are needed to feed the plant. And if you're not hoeing, then why don't I see any sign at all of even a weed or a blade of grass. Usually when I see that I think low organic matter or soil chemistry problem because weeds are a good indicater of soil health. (If you overfertilize early and allow to dry out then that could also cause this) And I see no mulch of any kind; it appears that bare soil is exposed to hot sun allowing the soil temperature to go too high and dry out. Stem roots like it cool and evenly moist. What I would do now is add a inch or two of well rotted cow manure or composted cow manure, water in and the mulch about 2 inches deep. After blooming feed with a well balanced FORTIFIED fertilizer ( with micro nutrients) How you treat these bulbs this year has a lot to do with their stamina and resistance to desease/blights next year.
Which leads to your example #1. One must think back on 'what was, or what wasn't' done way back up the road--last year; even the year before that. Healthy plants are resistant plants--even to blights to a good extent. This is not typical black spot botrytis, tho there are several types. This most likely cause is a soil chemical imbalance that is responsible for this condition.
Daconil is good for contolling fungi and molds and I use it on my peach trees for leaf curl. However, its not my favorite when it comes to lilies. I much prefer a copper base fungicide.

Thank you both. I hand weed my gardens and especially during bloom season. I battle chickweed and creeping jenny something fierce, so I like to stay ahead of it if I can. This bed is completely new and old chicken poo was added to it last fall. What I don't understand is even throughout the other new bed and the older one where there is mulch I've had leaves start looking like this. I water about every 2-3 days which is normal for here and it gets hand watered (normally takes me a good couple hours.) They've been gorgeous the last few years, perhaps the miracle grow that I normally give them just is not cutting it? I do that about every two weeks.

I did see a copper one in the store today, thought about picking it up... perhaps I may just go back for it!


Thanks again!

Sassafrass: what kind of lilies are those in example #1---are they Orientals? A few people have experienced this purple leaf symptom this year--including me with an Oriental. I see you have wood chip mulch in one area. Were the 'purple leaf' ones ever mulched this year yet? I'm trying to find some commonalities, not trying to be nosy or anything; it helps everyone. I like that wood chip mulch and its darn effective at holding soil temp down and holding moisture in the ground at the same time. I spread mine almost 2 inches deep.

Chicken poo is some pretty strong stuff. In picture #2 then, that might be some fertilizer burn with the onset of this hot dry weather. If thats the case, I'd just mulch good and keep the moist but not wet

Pictures 1-3 are Asiatics, 4 & 5 are Orientals. It seems to be hitting them both. Yes we had someone come in with a grinder and grind up some corn stalk bales... very nice mulch! I have wood chip mulch in this bed here which I've had for a few years now.. but also found a couple with these leaves in there.


Even with that chicken poo sitting for as long as it did (probably 2 years) yeah I suppose it could have been too strong for the one type... all of the Sphinx are like that.

It's hitting all the beds with a lily here lily there method. I'll see if I can take a better picture later this evening of the different beds. Some have mulch right around the lilies and some don't have it added yet. Will get to that soon though!

Nope I don't take you as being nosy... that is how we all learn is by asking questions. and I sure do appreciate the advise!

Especially with a year like this with heat stressing many plants, I don't think it's too unusual to have a few of the lower leaves brown as they are the oldest and are being shaded by the top growth. HOWEVER, if it starts creeping up the stem, then you need to hit it with a fungicide, pronto. Those areas with no mulch are more susceptable to fungus being splattered up from the soil during watering or rain.

As Lorn mentioned, the purple leaf is a mystery. I hit mine with a fungicide and the new foliage seems to be all green since then, though it could be coincidental.

I cannot follow every move you made, or what the weather is like, but it 'does' look like the late flowering problem i get here, when its hot [January]-then it rains at 25 degrees, then it gets hot again and so on,.,.,.I have moved away from animal manures to see if any difference occurs this year

A hoe almost never touches my garden. I pull individual weeds, too.

I can't see how 2 year old chicken poo could cause a problem. We are all grasping at possibilities, and trying to pull any information out of you, Sassafrass, that you haven't supplied. Searching for commonalities, as Lorn suggests, is the key. It's really hard to make an educated guess, considering the paucity of information, but my best guess is slow bulb rot, or possibly some kind of nutrient imbalance. It's hard to be convinced of the latter, considering your first pic with healthy and "not healthy" stalks right next to each other. Can you sacrifice an affected stalk and see what is going on down there?

Your second group of pics is most probably water stress. Most likely too much water coupled with hot temperatures. It's hard to say since your conditions are not known.

This has been a strange year. I see the same thing on some of my lilies. I have had more bloom bust than I have ever seen. I am blaming it on the weather. We have had extreme heat dry conditions.

It is something about rain water vs home water with all the chemicals that are added to make it safe for drinking but toxic for plants when we did not get enough rain water to wash out the chemicals of home water.

I finally have gave up and decided to enjoy what I get this year. That is why I plant so many. If 5 do not bloom I will have 25 that will bloom.

thanks everyone for all the input.. I GREATLY appreciate it.

The lilies that were turning the darker shades I dug up because some of them were starting to die off anyhow. The bulbs still looked fine but with one popping up here and there I just am not going to chance them all. About 30 in all were disposed of.... not too terrible.

Thanks a bunch!

This has indeed been a strange year for all of us. I have one stem of Lilium regale that went purple from top to bottom just after it finished blooming. It coincided with a time when I was not able to water and the soil baked dry in the hot sun. In my opinion, it is likely heat and drought stress. But I will wait until next season to be sure in case I do need to remove it. I know that this particular bulb was planted more shallowly than my others (5-6 inches deep as opposed to 8-9 inches for the rest) so it is not as "insulated" from temperature extremes.

Many plants will produce purplish anthocyanin pigments to help protect their foliage in brilliant, constant sunshine. Maybe these lilies are just stressed and overheating and trying to protect themselves?

Ispahan said:
Many plants will produce purplish anthocyanin pigments to help protect their foliage in brilliant, constant sunshine. Maybe these lilies are just stressed and overheating and trying to protect themselves?

If that were the case, one would see the purpling uniform according to the amount of sun received, with the possible exception of younger leaves having a greater ability to react.

True enough, Rick. I have also been wondering about a stress-induced phosphorus deficiency causing the purple coloration. I am curious to see if this bulb returns next year, what it looks like and how it grows/blooms.

I reckon there are several things that could cause it. Where my concern was/is, it wasn't hitting the the whole grouping (one particular variety) it was hitting one or two out of the many different ones spread over a large area. It's not been overly humid and hot here... so taking everything into consideration and what all I was risking by leaving them there, I dug them up and disposed of them. I hope that takes care of whatever the issue was, I guess I'll see further down the road if it did.

I appreciate everyone's thoughts on this matter!

Well, we're all learning from this experience. Corey, your's is the 'first' Division 6 type reported I think. Sassafrass, on the ones you had the problem with--were they all Oriental or have an Oriental component to them? And on the ones you dug--did you check the bulbs--and how did they look, etc. Do you water with a garden hose and is your water 'quite cold'? Anything you can add is valuable information. I've already collected a fair amount of info and anthing anyone can add would be great! It all helps pinpoint a 'trigger event' as to why single stressed or weaker bulb in a larger group of same type is affected and the others not.

The first ones that I noticed were orientals in the front bed, there were 4 out of aprox.30 bulbs that were newly placed this spring. I started looking for others and that is when I saw that some Asiatics had the same coloration starting. The majority of the ones hit clear throughout all beds were the newly planted this spring.

Some of these plants appeared to me that they would not make it to bloom, they were growing well before the leaves turned purple, but that seemed to stunt their growth further in the process, however the ones that it affected of my older bed it caught just as they were getting ready to bloom. Blooms for those were on the small side, there was Starlette and one of my no id whites. Earlier on I did not notice anything different from many of these due to them growing normal... but as bloom season progressed and other plants flourished of the same variety some started getting these purple leaves and headed in the opposite direction fast. Whatever it was didn't seem to mind if it was an Oriental, Asiatic, Trumpet, LA or OT. There was a plant popping up in what seemed to be just about every bunch. While the others looked gorgeous, you could tell something wasn't going right for the other ones.

There are roughly 1300 lilies scattered out there in the yard.. about 60 different varieties. I hand water everything except for the veggie gardens. We have well water which is cool and I've always water'd in the evenings down low to the ground (those longer hand wands are wonderful) about every couple days, if there's been no rain.

When I decided to dig them up, the bulbs looked normal, no rot.. no bugs and I did not notice anything odd.

Nope I totally agree, the more minds that pull together, the better off we all are!

Thanks for your very well detailed summary! All this helps put the pieces of the puzzle together. I've had it too--in exactly the same way you explained it, but mine were Orientals (three plants) Up 'till now Orientals were involved. Now recently, other types are being reported. There is communication back and forth outside this forum taking place and a couple of us here are exchanging information with certain North American growers. Right now, it seems the hot March, frosty late April-early May plus the hot dry June (with high emphasis on the late frosty period) as major contibuting factors. It didn't necessarily have to show frost damage to the tiny delicate inner leaves of the rosette. More information may develop shortly.

Thank you... I appreciate it.. and this is the way we are all learning.

We did lay tarp over the beds too when there was danger of the frosts. My husband made it so that it could just be unrolled right there over top, so we left them all in place on the sides of the beds and just unrolled as needed in the evening and then unrolled in the mornings. I have some doubts for this being do to the frosts at least the ones here-- because they were covered, although anything is certainly possible. The habits of it taking one here and there, have me leaning toward a virus, but I've not found anything as far as good information with photos to back that up. I can tell you it has me stumped. I wonder too if perhaps with the yo yo temps... if it was just too stressful for some of them that may have had an underlying problem and it just helped it along... then showing through that coloration.

Last year, we had humidity so bad in June I could not keep the lens on the camera from fogging. This year... however it was nice. Humidity not too bad, heck about 2 or 3 days ago it was 67 degrees. It's been running in the mid 80's, mostly.

I look forward to finding out more.
Thank you for keeping me posted!