Anyone Have Japanese Beetles?

Fred wrote:
(Umm, I just had a

*truly* wicked thought: I could direct PondWoman to rec.gardens.roses --
she'd never know what hit her!)

Anne Lurie
Raleigh, NC


If this is the typical reception that someone gets here when they offer
advice I hope I am never stupid enough to try to share anything. Fred




-- nope not typical but we dont normaly have people trying to sell
unknown substances either





John Rutz
Z5 New Mexico

never miss a good oportunity to shut up

see my pond at:

http://www.fuerjefe.com

Hank Pagel wrote:

Adult Control
Option 1: Cultural Control - Hand Picking By noticing when the first
adults arrive on a property, you can pick off and destroy these scouts
that attract additional pests. The adults are less active in the
early-morning or late-evening. They can be destroyed by dropping into
a container of soapy water.

IMO, this is what works best. I walk around the yard with a ziploc ba
half filled with soapy water, picking off the JBs and dumpin' in the
bag. When done, I zip it closed and drop it in the outside garbage can.
They don't bite or anything and once you get used to picking them off,
it becomes a triumph of sorts. I know, I'll be reported to the Society
for Preservation of JBs....

Something else that I hgighly recommend is the use of Milky Spore on
your property. The cost of the canister may be a bit intimidating to
some but when you look at how long the protection lasts, it's really
quite inexpensive. Once you put it down, campaign to get your
neighbours to put it down, and they can then bug their next immediate
neigbour, and so on and so on. *grin*

I've also managed this year to convince my neighbours' to give up their
bag-a-bug traps or locate them on the other side of their property line
from me. Since I have the most landscaping on the block, they tend to
want to "know my secerets". *grin* Despite them seeing me in the yard
each and every night, none of them want to think it's just simple
diligent work - they want "the secret" to all the flowers. This year, I
gave it to them. *laugh*

Sevin works well for destroying JBs but I hesitatie to use it. (I
actually have some in the garage that I have yet to use bout it in a
moment of extreme JB exasperation.) However, since i also work hard to
attract birds to my yard and some of those birds (the bluebirds in
particular) feed on insects, I don't want to cause accidental harm to
them. Insects devour sevin = birds devour insects = possible sice birds

Susan
shsimko at duke dot edu