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HELP!! what is wrong with my lollipop and crimson pixie lilies?

Lauril Rohde
11 years ago

I need some MAJOR help. Two years in a row now my lilies, especially the lollipop ones, get leaves browning and dying from the ground up until the entire stalks are brown with dead leaves hanging down. I have tried dusting with copper fungicide as I read somewhere that the lilies must have botrytis. But now I have read that copper is poisonous to the soil and kills off beneficial organisms. Last year I cut the stalks to the ground after the plants had flowered and the entire stalks were brown and dead looking, and dusted the ground with the copper fungicide. This year they came up at first very green and healthy with beautiful flowers, but then started having the same problem even though my husband dusted the base of the stalks and the bottom leaves with it after the problem started. I just got finishing digging up the all my lollipops, bulbs and all, before the dead leaves crept all the way to the top, and then dusted the ground heavily with copper fungicide. What have we done? I am wondering if I should completely dig up the soil that I just put the copper on to save nearby plants and so I can use the soil for new plants next year? Do you think I could clean up the bulbs and resuse them or are they now contaminated and shouldn't be used again. If I can use them again, when do I plant them? OR can I get new bulbs and try again? I am very worried that I have done something very wrong.

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