japanese beetles

They are really, really bad this year. I've never seen anything like this before. My garden is on a 2nd floor balcony and the beetles start coming late in the morning, like heavy rain, and have eaten all the zinnias, some of the marigold leaves, and most of the four o'clock leaves, They've also eaten the night-scented white petunias all up. Because I don't want to use poisons, I made some tents out of netting and it seems to work. The only thing is, I have cucumbers and squash growing under the tents and I know that I'll have to remove them so that insects can pollinate the flowers (eventually).

Try the traps (home depot or Lowes). This worked for me. We have had bad infestations in Georgia.

Yes they ARE really bad this year, just like last year. I've caught thousands so far. Was thinking about the floating row covers over my corn like your photo. They chewed the heck out of my Hibiscus too.

Rosey... Over in the veggie gardening forum, forget whoit is off hand, but they give a real good description of how to hand pollinate the squash and you could that yourself instead of opening your plants back up to the insects.

Thanks everyone.

Japanese beetles are very persistent. I never wanted to use insect killer on them (for fear of killing other insects) but when I removed my covers so that I could enjoy my plants, the beetles swarmed everywhere and started eating everything. I bought some pyrethrin and canola oil at the garden center and sprayed them with it. They were all dead within hours. It really did work.

I'm pretty sure I'll be spraying for several weeks more at least because many of the young trees that grow near me have been destroyed and some are still covered with beetles. Reluctantly, I removed my four o’clocks and zinnias because these seemed to be their favorites. They also ate the flowers of all my beautiful open pollinated petunias but didn’t touch the Wal-Mart petunias.

One interesting thing about pollination, I found three heirloom cucumbers perfectly formed and ripe growing under the covers. Maybe something tiny crawled through the mesh to make that happen.

If only these insects came back every seventeen years like cicadas.

Unfortunately, if the ground all around your area isn't treated for the grubs, you will continue to have a problem.

Glad ya got some cukes going. : )

Sorry that you have so many - here in No Ga, I have only seen one this year on my roses. I have been told that it is because of the severe drought we have been having, the larvae in th ground simply dried up and died! This is the only benefit I can see for our drought, the skeeters and Yellow Jackets seem to be quite healthy.

In the past, I have used the traps too and they do work. You can even make your own from liter drink containers, I used to know how, but can't remember. Maybe someone else knows. I think it was simply to turn the bottles upside down, and suspend them, don't remember if I used a bait. I will try to find a link to that.

We used Milky Spore on the lawn a few years back,, it is suppose to last 10 years. Milky spore kills the grubs that develope in your lawn. The only problem is that your neighbors also need to use it, or the beetles will still fly into your yard. The deal is to dig up and count the larvae in the ground - if you find 10-12 per square foot, you have an infestation and need to treat it.

This message was edited Aug 5, 2008 3:02 PM