I have Daylily Leafminers now what do I do? I don't use pesticides is there another option. I heard Spinosad is an organic means of control but I don't want to hurt my beneficials. Can someone point me in the right direction?

Another pest that somehow made its way to North America from elsewhere

I assume you've read the suggestions, such as on this AHS page, to remove and destroy infested leaves. The AHS did fund some research into insecticides, including spinosad, but none of those tried was particularly effective.

http://www.daylilies.org/ahs_d...

For anyone interested, the study was written up in the AHS Daylily Journal of Winter 2014, pages 38 and 39.

yeah thanks a lot Japan and Taiwan

Leaf miners are a real problem in my garden. Not exactly sure what harm they do other than just ruin the looks of the leaves. I have not found a cure for them.

Well .... what do you know .... That is the one pest that I have not had a major problem with .....yet (knock on wood). Amazing that somehow my garden doesn't have an issue with such. Perhaps there is hope yet for me in my climate and region to grow daylilies without being totally attacked by something ..... disease or pest.

over 90% of my DL's have it I pulled all leaves with symptoms

Say hello to my little friend

Burn baby burn!!!



Becky Florida records of DL Leafminers include Alachua, Baker, Duval, Hernando, Lake, Levy, Nassau, Orange,
Seminole, St. Johns, and Suwanee Counties as of 2012 so be on the look out

I'm in Indian River County. I have seen leafminers on other plants, but very little on my daylily leaves. Maybe they can't compete with all the daylily leaf streak?

Is there another host plant for the daylily leafminer? Or multiple hosts for that matter? If there are other host plants growing near and around the property, then the benefit of burning the leaves may not result in a great return. Mind you, I'd probably be doing it too or at least doing something comparable, but if the insect is thriving on some kind of pasture or ditch plant you may not see much benefit from the work. That would be something I'd want to know before I expended a lot of effort on something that may not give a good return for the work.

No, it's only been recorded on daylilies but it can survive locally on the "ditch daylily". It's a pest specific to daylilies and native to Asia.

My daylily inspector found leafminer on a couple of mine 2 years ago. So far I have not seen them spread any further. He never recommended anyway to get rid of them.

I think many growers have it and may not even know due to the high number of DL's they grow. Just go to the "July blooms" or "seedlings for July" threads and click on any pic with the foliage included and chances are you'll see it. I'm not going to say any names because some may take it the wrong way and I'm not trying to offend just help. It seems July , August, and September is when they appear in the highest populations according to a pdf I read last night but now can't find the link. I've noticed that tets seem to be affected more than dips in my garden not sure if there is a connection or just by chance it happened like that. The key here is it won't kill the plant but just makes it unsightly. They typically start near the tip of the foliage and move to the base so removing the the infected areas as they appear seems like a much better option than what I did. However like Sue said ditch daylilies are also a host of this pest so irradiation is virtually impossible. They are spreading like wildfire across the US so check your foliage often this time of year and you won't have to remove as much foliage as I did I was told by many gardeners that daylilies are not bothered by pests or diseases but the deeper I get into daylilies the more I find this not to be true at all. I guess if you grow daylilies there are just some things you are going to have to deal with Leafminers are just one of the many. The lesson we should take away from this if any is don't acquire plants from overseas, there is a reason it's illegal and it's to stop importation of invasive species. The last thing we need in the US is more problems from other countries. I'm already dealing with Asian tiger misquotes, brown marmorated stink bugs, Japanese Beetles, Fire ants, Chinese privet, Japanese Honeysuckle, Elaeagnus umbellata, and now Daylily Leafminers.

Daniel - I do agree with you on the points you made. I get most everything you can imagine including Spring Sickness, but leafminer has been a very minimal issue so far here. My humid and hot climate seems to attract the bad. I started growing daylilies because I had also heard they had very little disease and insect issues. So not true!!! Maybe years ago it was, but not anymore. But something that I have discovered ... some of the new daylilies I have received and transplanted into my garden seemed to be prone to problems. A couple of them I did in fact lose, but most just took a beating from the transplant stress of heat, disease, and pests. I have developed the attitude that if it is a strong plant that can adapt to my climate and environment and overcome health issues, then it is a good one to keep in my yard. Surprisingly, most of my newly acquired daylilies (acquired within a year) usually surprise me and step it up the 2nd year. I have learned to get them situated and then leave them alone except for cleaning up debris around them, fertilizing, and watering. I grow organically, so I am not big on chemicals at all. I do try organic or less chemical treatments if I am trying to save plants, but usually I let them fight it out with whatever is ailing them.

The only plants that I have that seem to be disease and pest free are native plants. If it originated here, then it is very hardy and healthy and typically remains so.

I can not grow ditch lilies here. I had tons of them (30+) that I got in a trade years ago and they slowly died one by one. No disease was apparent. I think it was the hot and dry late summer months that did them in. After 3 years, they are pretty much gone. I have 2 or 3 that I still see little leaf blades coming up, but they are struggling and never get very big and never bloom anymore. Maybe I should pot them up and see what happens, but honestly it really isn't worth my time. If I plant them back into the ground, they are goners most likely.

The lightning-fast spread of leaf miners can be almost solely attributed to sellers of daylilies that either don't know they have them or know they have them but do not treat for them. The majority of photos seen (that include foliage) on Facebook show leaf miner tracks, with some of the worst afflicted plants being sold by some of the sellers.

A few days ago I was viewing photos taken at an AHS display garden and the leaves in most photos were riddled with tracks! A display garden!

This year, there has been a huge increase in people posting photos of foliage showing leaf miner tracks and asking "what's this on my daylily?"

Last year one person made the statement, "What's the big deal? Everybody has them." I take great offense to this kind of thinking because not everybody has them and I doubt anyone wants them.

Infected plants are being shipped with little concern about the spread of leaf miners. I applaud anyone who takes steps to rid their garden of them. If a person has a few, without taking steps to combat them, leaf miners will increase in numbers until tracks are seen everywhere.

Good to know Judy, I only found one plant so I better figure out how to treat it so it doesn't spread. Do you know if leaf miners are killed by our northern winters like rust is, or will they just come back next year?

I think this is the culprit that causes the leaf miners in my garden. I took five very fat, cute toads down yesterday and added them hoping it would help. See the black fly on the petal?

Hemlady said:Good to know Judy, I only found one plant so I better figure out how to treat it so it doesn't spread. Do you know if leaf miners are killed by our northern winters like rust is, or will they just come back next year?

Winters do not kill them. They overwinter in the soil and plant debris and possibly deep in the part of the crown that is unaffected by freezing temps.

Larry that is the fly that produces the leaf miners. I seen one today on the foliage of Kabuki Drama, I tried to kill it but it flew away.

judydu2 said:

Winters do not kill them. They overwinter in the and plant debris and possibly deep in the part of the crown that is unaffected by freezing temps.

I just wonder if an organic larvaicide like Gnatrol WDG that I use on my cuttings to control fungus gnat larva will work. the plant absorbs the Gnatrol and any larva that feeds on the plant will die. I don't put Gnatrol on my established plants because most of my plants are edible and I don't trust putting BT in my body but I can do without eating daylilies. I will try it today and see if it lowers the amount of tracks in my garden it lasts for about 3-4 weeks so I should see a difference with just 1 application if it works. I'll keep everyone updated on this thread. It should stop them in their "tracks" literally

Gnatrol WDG seems to work on leaf miners. After observing my plants over the past 2 weeks I seen a few new track but they stop after only going about an inch down the leaf and I haven't seen any new tracks period in the past 3 or 4 days. I will reapply in a few days but so far this is great news with anyone fighting leaf miners.

Cross fingers, I don't have it here. My mom has a Zinnia and it had a leaf miner attack (that probably is not the same leaf miner). I told her to cut and toss the infected leaves, washing the leaves and she never found it again.
Anyhow, we read about a home made treatment for leaf miners. It won't hurt to try:
- 30 milliliters of dish soap (the leady who tried this used a lemon soap dish)
- one tablespoon of Denatured alcohol
- 1 liter of water
Mix all together in a spray bottle and spray it on leaves, rubbing with fingers.
The lady who wrote this said that it take care of leaf miners, killing them and drying their "galleries" too.

If someone is going to try I'd be happy to know how it works out.

cybersix said:Cross fingers, I don't have it here. My mom has a Zinnia and it had a leaf miner attack (that probably is not the same leaf miner)

The daylily leafminer only attacks daylilies. Since it's in the leaf the soap mixture may or may not work however insecticidal soaps are a great tool for bug control in the garden and highly underrated. Thanks for the great info.