I've never lost a bush from beetle or any other insect damage and I do nothing, no insecticide spray or picking them off the bushes, nothing! Worrying about them is futile so I ignore them and the damage they do until they're gone. It'd be a cold day in hell that I'd go out 20 times a day to pick them off or knock them into soapy water. My area is surrounded by soybean fields, another Beetle delicacy so I get just as many as anyone else.

Yes Cass I do realize that the weather is very different over there! Cold winters and more windy than here. And it is way more hot May-September than here (90F is a sweltering heatwave here and about as hot as it ever gets). I really need to choose hardy roses (No teas and chinas will survive those winters!!) And HTs will struggle, but are possible in sheltered areas and with winter protection. On the other hand there is so much more sunlight than here (latitude of Davenport, IA is the same as Rome or Cote D Azur in Southern Europe (only the winters are cold inland climate!). I have always wondered why roses get so much bigger in FX Chicago (I see 5-6 feet tall bushy HTs and Floribundas. (Temps are often 12F higher in urban areas, so zone 5 is not just zone 5) But it must be the higher amount of sunlight. If I look at a map and compare latitude to here We get the same amount of sunlight they get 750 miles north of Chicago. (In the Manitoba province of Canada). (We are however blessed with the mild climate because of the Gulfstream and the surrounding sea, but high pressure sends Russian extremely cold temps our way and the temps often drops below -15F. One thing I always take advantage of is the micro climate when choosing roses. Roses near house walls will suffer less frost damage than roses further away from the house. A patio like that on the picture makes it possible to grow roses that are hardy to zone higher than recommended, because of the heat reflection. So I know I have to choose roses for zone 4-5 (and 6 in protected sheltered areas. Devon, It sure would be nice to move to California. But real estate prices there are out of our league! I spotted a beautiful "Prairie Flower" "A Hawkeye Belle...in Iowa ... that is the attraction there.... No I did not "Create" the informal gardens in the pictures. They are just pictures of the style I like and I keep in my collection of gardens that inspire me and the clients I work for. The blue structure in the background of the first picture is a patio deck. It takes time for a garden to mature and most of the gardens I have done lately will take a few years before I will go take pictures of them, since it is important to have pictures of my work. I already have a lot of work maintaining some of the gardens I have done.

We had a horrible infestation of JB last year. We did several "JB patrols" every day, knocking them into a dish of soapy water. I'd say that we probably killed at least 5000 (likely more) of them over the course of the season - one patrol could yield several hundred beetles. I also would patrol the part of my neighbor's yard that bordered mine -- they seemed particularly fond of their rose of sharon. I'm not sure if that is the reason, but this year patrols are yielding much smaller numbers. I've probably only killed about 200 to 300 so far this year. Hopefully my patrolling last year helped keep them from breeding and reduced the population. Also, if you can catch them early -- as soon as they start feeding -- it will help too. When they find a plant they like, they emit some kind of pheremone that calls other JBs over to the plant. (Which was certainly what was going on with the neighbor's rose of sharon last year.) So if you can get them as soon as they start feeding, they won't emit that pheremone, and won't call their buddies over to join them. I did see a wheelbug eating a JB the other day. It was cool. :-) Mel

Hi All! I have several raised beds and one has Canna and Four O'clocks. When the Jap' beetles arrived just over a week ago I began picking them off. At first first there were only 5 or 10. Then last weekend the amounts began to grow slightly. It was the first real beetle infestation I've had since we moved here 4 years ago. I had a metal Jap' beetle catcher from way back, along with a can of scent. I hung it in the middle of the bed on Monday eve. On Tuesday morning before leaving for out of town, I went to check to see if it was catching. I couldn't believe it. Without to much exaggeration there must have been 500 in the small 4 X 8 area. The pungent scent on Tuesdas hot humid morning must have drawn them to the catcher, with a quick stopover to the plants, from all of my neighborhood, and there was only 1 or 2 inside the catcher. Boy what a screw up that was. Well it's taken me almost a week of picking and drowning to get it under control. I began culling off all the hundreds of leaves they destroyed over the weekend. I had 1 beautiful Hollyhock in the bed that I left that came up from seed. All that's left are the Maroon blooms. I'm going to leave it to see how resilient a plant can be. Last year we had a Maple tree that was infested with the small inch caterpillar and I swear I was going to cut the tree down as we couldn't even use the hot-tub because of the droppings. I'm not that heartless so I'm leaving the Hollyhock as is because I swear the tree has come back stronger than ever. Of course the Holly won't have that chance for next year. But isn't Nature amazing? Jim