I had an army of Japanese Beatles attacking my grape vines. They chew and destroy the leaves. I used Spectracide spray. This thing is great it did not kill them immediately but it took about one hour. Its action is to attack and destroy its nervous system. After they hit with the spray they don't chow on the leaves but they appear like drunk until their demise. My Grape vines did good this season.

The beetle traps for the past decade works wonder. This year I don't bother to set the trap since I caught so few last year (like 10 beetles per trap, not worth it). But back in 2012 when I first set the trap, I got thousands in each bag and fed them to the birds. The birds have been hunting down the beetles ever since. I set the traps FAR AWAY from my rose garden, see excerpt from below link: "Research that was conducted at the University of Kentucky indicated that the Japanese beetle traps attract several more beetles than are caught in the traps. Thus, the rose bushes and plants along the flight path of the beetles and in the same area of the traps placement are likely to incur much more damage than if no traps are used." Japanese Beetle control This year with no traps, and beetles leave Bolero alone, I also planted a red geranium next to Bolero so the strong scent of geranium distracted the beetles. Pic. taken this year, Bolero barely survived my zone 5a winter so it's so short. I credit the strong scented geranium for deterring both rabbits and beetles from eating super-short Bolero. The plastic is to guard the rabbits, but I will take it off since rabbits haven't eaten Bolero as of August 4, 2022. Many and tightly packed petals of Austin roses are harder for Beetles to nest inside, so they devour fewer petals like Pink Peace, Betty White, and Knock-outs. Agree with others' observation that roses in partial shade have less damage than roses in full sun. My garden is very shady, with most roses getting 4 to 6 hours of sun max. Agree that beetles are less attracted to red and many petals' roses. For the past 12 years, very fragrant W.S. 2000 is never eaten, same with The Dark Lady, and many petals and red roses like Barcelona, Munstead Wood and the Squire. The thickness of mulch prevents beetles' eggs from hatching into grubs and preventing grubs from burrowing deep into the soil. Six of my decades old trees died after the past two harsh zone 5a winters, so I asked the tree company to grind them into mulch for me. One adult beetle can lay up to 60 eggs, but their eggs get dried out on top of dry mulch. Below info. is from the web: "Adult beetles are present for about 6 weeks every summer. The adult beetles begin to emerge from the ground in late June and new adults continue to appear throughout July. Each beetle lives from 30 to 45 days." In early spring I work my soil, and the only place where I find grubs burrowing deep in my dense & heavy clay is near the rainspout where there's no mulch, or soil is made fluffy by acidic rain. But I can't find any grubs in my vegetable beds where I heaped leaves up to 1 foot through the winter. Early this morning 8/5/22 at 7 am I went out to hunt for Japanese Beetles and I can't find any. The birds got them beforehand. The year with the LEAST beetles is when I piled up the most mulch, like recent 2 years of six trees converted into mulch. Or back in 2016 when I collected 90 bags of leaves from neighbors as mulch. I have all the plants that attract beetles: 150+ varieties of roses for the past decade, a crabapple tree, and a cherry tree.

Always when planting trees, shrubs and other long-term subjects you want the same soil throughout the potential rooting area - no amended holes, pockets, strips or other small areas. If the mix you mentioned is that whole be area then that should be okay - unless the organic component is too high, as the dark appearance might be taken to indicate. Next you should mulch with wood chips or other coarse material around the new tree.

I forgot to bookmark the site where I saw it, but one gardener soaked some planks of Red Cedar in water then used the water to spray her roses. Said it worked like a charm. Having checked bottles of various natural bug repellents (for plants or people) I've seen Cedar and other types of essential oils listed so I bought a bottle of Cedar EO to make my own spray. The bottle just arrived today and I have yet to see more than one JB on my property, but when they arrive I will be ready. FYI the gardener said on her site that she thought Cedar oil like the kind you might use to refresh the wood in a Cedar chest or closet inserts would work but my local home improvement stores didn't have them in store, so I just ordered the EO. Figure I can use it for repelling some sort of pest naturally if the JB don't attack.