Thank you! I did some more reading on them and decided to set her loose since I don't have grapes. When I read someone's story about having one as a pet when they were a child, I decided she was safe to handle. I ended up with a great picture of it taking off for flight. Of course, I spent the next 15 minutes trying to catch it in the house :). Thanks again, Bellatrix

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

Good idea, Jim, that would be sturdy & easy to clean. What store did you get it from? I will have to look for that. One healthy rose worth buying: William Shakespeare 2000, I never find any Japanese Beetle on that for the past 4 years, since its petals are tightly-packed, and JB can't get inside. I have W.S. 2000 in a flooded area, with the overflow of rain barrel dumping water on that tiny rose, yet it's clean. I also put gypsum (for its zillion-petals), and cracked-corn in the planting hole (for anti-fungal agents in corn, such as zinc and copper). How one prepare the planting hole determines how disease-resistant it is. If the hole is well-drained, and has beneficial microbes, it will be healthy. When I piled up horse manure on Golden Celebration, I was surprised that the previously compacted soil underneath is made fluffy, thanks to the microbes from the well-rotted manure. The below link explains why: http://www.naturalenviro.com/Article.php?ArticleSKU=Soil-Building "The broad and diverse population of soil microorganisms will immediately begin to build an aerobic zone in the soil. The aerobic zone is the top portion of the soil that supports plant life. A healthy soil will normally have an aerobic zone 8-12 inches deep. Most soils today have an organic matter content of less than 1% and usually have very shallow aerobic zones (1-2 inches). One of the main causes of this is the lack of diverse population of beneficial soil microbes. Soils that have low organic matter and shallow aerobic zones also have a very low water holding capacity, are compacted, and have very low oxygen content. These conditions are very adverse to good root development by turf or plants and usually indicate very low microbial activity. When you apply microbes, you will see conditions in your soil begin to change quickly." An excerpt from another site on humus: http://www.naturalenviro.com/Article.php?ArticleSKU=humic-acid-role "Humic acid is also especially important because of its ability to chelate micronutrients increasing their bio-availability. Humic acid stimulates microbial activity by providing the indigenous microbes with a carbon source for food, thus encouraging their growth and activity. Soil microbes are responsible for solubilizing vital nutrients such as phosphorus that can then be absorbed by the humic acid and in turn made available to the plant. Additionally, microbes are responsible for the continued development of humus in the soil as it continues to break down not fully decomposed organic matter." William Shakespeare 2000 as own-root can take lots of rain. I look over the pictures over the last 4 years, including the 1st year when it was in a pot, with chemical fertilizer. My rating: it was really stingy in a pot, from high-nitrogen-soluble. It gave lots of bloom with sulfate of potash & gypsum, but the health can't be compared to horse manure. This year with too much rain: I used red-lava-rock & cocoa mulch, bloom-quality is good, but leaves got holes from excess water, but no black spots. Below is William Shakespeare when I used horse manure & alfalfa meal, 100% healthy, fantastic bloom-color and quality: Here's William Shakespeare 2000 bloom with horse manure: nice purple, thanks to the trace elements in horse manure. I like more than what I have now, deep crimson from red-lava-rock:

irisgal - They have hooked feet. They land on rose bugs or flower and chew through. When you try to pick them off, they drop like a stone and bury in the soil or mulch. I have one very long rose bed I am monitoring several times a day and get them. But my roses on other parts of the property are either shrubs where the branches make it impossible to do the shake thing or get so covered it is a losing battle. I fear for Heirloom, because she is so fragrant, they just cover her. It's not just the roses either. They are on my cannas, crepe myrtles, cheery trees, grapes and other fruiting crops.