Have you ever tried humanure tea? I know it sounds positively bizarre, but trust me, the Japanese Beetles can't stand it and will steer clear of your beautiful roses all season long.

I have more info if you're interested. It's super easy to do, practically free, and nature's perfect and intended fertilizer/pest/disease repellant.

krazee4rozez-it can't possibly be worse than what I'm thinking ... so yes please...fill us in.
I'd love to know more. ( I think!?)

Krazee4rozez - I checked out the link, and it is very interesting, to say the least. However, unless you live in the country and have a compost toilet, it would be a little impractical. My family would definitely think I'd finally gone round the bend if I started a 'collection' system, and my neighbours would probably report me to the city.....
Judith

What link?
I don't see one.

Sorry Kanuk, I got the link from another post from Krazee4rozez - you have to copy and paste it though:

http://humanurehandbook.com/videos.html#adding

Judith

Hi Judith,

Don't be mistaken - while the composting loo is nice, it's not necessary. We composted our own waste for years before investing in a special toilet. I honestly have the most gorgeous and healthy garden in town, and a almost never spend a dime on soil amendments, fungicides or pesticides.

I have turned many people on to the wonders of humanure and urine treatment. I do realize it sounds radical - I was "grossed out" the first time I ever heard of it - but it has literally transformed our lives and I hope to share this message with others, who can use it to grow world-class roses, vegetables, lawns, ornamentals, etc.

I've always heard about the risks of E coli and various other disease organisms present in human and pet waste matter. Has there been no incidences of that happening? Just curious, because, seriously, not meaning to be narrow-minded or anything, I think I would rather just buy some horse manure from my neighbour, who gets it from a friend's farm!
Judith

Karl with all due respect I beg to differ on your philosophy which is some cases is spot on BUT when you have literally thousands and thousands of Rose Chafers and JB like I do (the later staying until a hard frost) and ruin every rose, other ornamentals & vegetables it does tend to make one a tad grumpy....so I completely sympathize with anybody that has to deal with the cursed little bast****!
I spent a couple hundred on Milky Spore last year.
Can't wait for it to kick in!
Nematodes next on the agenda for Rose Chafers.
BTW I don't think any rose is immune...I have them in all colors, heights, very fragrant to scentless and they go on them ALL!

Hi Judith,

If the materials are composted correctly - you don't have to worry about things like e.coli. Plus, the humanure is applied directly to the soil, not to edible fruits and vegetables.

Non-edibles (like roses) benefit greatly from a foliar spray to eliminate disease and pests. I probably wouldn't spray fruits/vegetables with humanure tea (or fish emulsion, within 48 hours of harvest.

I play patty-cake with mine.

Judith- thanks for the link
Krazee4rozez- very interesting and although it takes you back a bit at first there is obviously something to it even though it's probably not going to be for everyone
Thks for your contribution to the subject of Japanese beetles.

The idea behind starting this thread was to gather information from all gardeners regarding observations/experiences/techniques they have so others might benefit from it. I think it's fair to say we're doing a bit of that here.
Although dealing with the JB seems like a futile mission it's sometimes nice to discuss it with others to see how they are dealing with the situation.
Thanks to all for contributing to the topic.

I have some half-crazed beetles out in the yard now, trying to devour anything and everything. They are acting so desperate! I am getting off here and going directly out there to drown 'em. Futile or not, they last for MONTHS here rather than a couple weeks. I have invested a lot of time, money and emotion in my roses, and I want to enjoy them, dangit!

michaelg, you coddle them. If you don't discipline them then they turn into antiestablishmentarians.

Greenhaven, I was referring to my humanure rather than my beetles, which I down in soapy water.

Well, my statement stands, regardless. Still fits.

I have no JB's! Probably they are coming but I'm wondering if our unusually cool weather has something to do with it. 50's at night for a long time.

Then I have one rose that has never had JB's. Eutin an old Kordes floribunda. Also no BS and a good repeater. A great small rose.

greenhaven-I hope it's mission accomplished! Go get 'em.

jim- Being fairly new to roses I appreciate knowing that Eutin has thus far been a good choice for you. I've never come across it before but it does resemble the Adelaide Hoodless in so many ways. I'll keep my eyes out for the Eutin rose in the future.
The weather here has been unseasonably cool as well. So far this year I've only hand picked 3-5 JB's but I have friends & neighbors who are fighting piles of them. The biggest difference between there properties & ours is they are full sun exposure all day every day. We receive far less direct sun & less intense heat due to forested wood lot surrounding our garden areas. It seems the JB's prefer lots of direct sun & heat ... but just an observation.

I have had "almost" no beetles so far. Less than 10. I am usually overrun by tens of thousands.

How is everyone else doing?

In the past...

{{gwi:228687}}

After three years of drought through last fall, I have had zero JBs this year. A few of the paler Asiatic beetles only.

harryshoe- That is one horrific image! OMG. Whoever doesn't cringe when they see that photo is certainly NOT a gardener.
YUK...if those aren't the grossest things.

OMG, that picture is disgusting! I've never seen such a bad infestation. I usually get 2 or 3 on a bloom, at most. But I have a friend with a vegetable garden who said they were devouring his beans, literally hundreds of them.

I gave up on the soapy water and have just been holding the bloom with one hand, letting them drop into the other hand, then squishing them between my (gloved) fingers. They are destroying every light-colored bloom, but are leaving the reds alone. I don't have a lot of blooms for them to eat, so they have started in on the leaves, but still won't touch the reds, like Mr. Lincoln and Veteran's Honor. I haven't seen them on any other plants.

Harryshoe, I would have used a BLOW Torch on that.
They seem to like Angel Face and MArilyn Monroe this year.

Japanese beetles are devouring a red maple we just planted last month (in back yard, none in front yard roses - yet). And I had just been saying to DH that I think all the grubs drowned. Better check the blueberry bushes tomorrow. They were eating those last year, though I never remember my parents having problems with them.

I don't get them at all from what I've seen. I havn't seen a single one on my roses or anybody else's plants and I havn't seen any damage that is indicative of JB. It's probably just because I live half a mile from downtown Columbus and they come into the city.

Eggplant leaf this morning. Guess there weren't enough roses to work on...

I noticed that JBs absolutely LOVE the Canadian Explorer roses. They completely devour my William Baffin roses. My John Davis roses gets them, but not as bad as WB! They don't seem to touch my red Kordes rose, whose name escapes me right now. I've seen a few on my red Ramblin' Red rose. It is tough to avoid them, so I do go around and catch a few in soapy water. Unfortunately, they love other plants too - daylilies, coneflowers, clematis (light colors), hollyhocks. I'll probably get rid of the hollyhocks - they love them way too much. These are the worse garden pest ever!

I have grown Illusion since the early 70s. Most years I never see a Japanese Beetle on it.

http://home.roadrunner.com/~kuska/illusion-the-plant.htm

Here is a link that might be useful: link for above

They are swarming my miniature willow bushes, which are variegated. Rose de Rescht, Cuthbert Grant, and my Lady Bird Johnson clematis are also their favorite targets, along with Brite Eyes, Aloha, Folksinger, and Winter Sunrise roses.

They infest my weeping Japanese Snowfire cherry tree....it's worse than anything I have ever seen.

Nothing seems off the menu to these beetles. They went after the variegated willows(Hakuro Nishiki)last year also. For some reason this year we are relatively untouched on our site. Can't explain it but what a relief. I do take good care of the soil and pride myself in being as organic as can be. Almost all of my perennials I raised from seed but at this point I'm not sure if those are things that are keeping the populations down to almost zero or not. It's so hard to know. I tend to think that stressed and weaker plant stock become host before more healthy ones. Just my opinion but don't know if it has merit.
Most of the beetles infesting our area are the beige, not shiny ones. The metallic greenish ones haven't shown so far but they were the predominant ones last year.

I usually think of July 10th as the peak of the season. As you see, my peak is an absolute swarm where you can't even walk in the yard without flying beetles crashing into you. They aren't here.....yet.

{{gwi:224808}}

They are munching down the ferns on the golf course. Saw more there than anywhere else. As for the roses, I was surprised. I saw more of them on the (random red shrub roses) than on the brighter ones like Seafoam, The Fairy and Carefree Delight.

Just to follow up on this thread...

It's about one week now and I just returned to the nursery to revisit the roses.
I'm sorry to report that both the Adelaide Hoodless & the Hope for Humanity roses both have fallen victim to the Japanese beetlles. Looking around the outdoor rose displays it was apparent that none of the roses were spared in the end.

Kanuk, I feel your pain. Every night I go on beetle patrol.

Do Japanese Beetles fly? It seems like they'd just take off when a person approached. We have "Japanese Beetles" here in S. CA - but I think they're actually Fig Beetles. Never seen what you're depicting here! How awful!

Yes, JB's fly. They don't usually fly off when you approach them while feeding (which is also often when they're mating). Instead at that time if you touch them the first thing they do is raise their middle legs in what has always appeared to me as some sort of a threat gesture (which never becomes anything threatening). If you knock them off what they're eating they may take flight before they hit the ground.

California does not have this beetle, and has been worried sick about getting it for some decades now.

Knowing that JBs tend to like light colored roses best, (they love Teasing Georgia & Golden Celebration!), I thought it weird that I keep finding 4-5 inside each dark crimson Baron Girod d'Lain bloom (as well as Alexander MacKenzie!
Not as bad as in past years, but still bad enough!
:0) Phyl

After not seeing anything so far, I finally saw the first ones Sunday. 2 on Pat Austin and 1 on White Eden. They weren't on WS2000.....yet. I get the feeling they may just be delayed as there was a short period of cooler temps that may have kept them from coming out. I have my fighting gloves ready and am preparing for war. ;)

If I only had 'em for a few weeks, I'd ignore them too. But if you read these threads, you'd know that some of us deal with intense infestations for the entire season. Starting as the roses first flush. Last year we had Jbs from end of June to early October. It gets really old to be told to just ignore them. That works for some. Great. It doesn't work for everyone.

Our Jb numbers are way down too this year due to low temps. It got warm today, and the little buggers are back. I'm not going to hold out hope that this is it. They'll be out in full force soon enough. One climber was already nearly stripped in one day. So much for just ignoring.

So far in Columbus, they have been light, however back in my hometown out in the country in western Ohio they were murderously bad. I remember seeing JB traps outside that were so full that they were overflowing. With that said, I have heard of some varied success of having a diluted scent trap that attracts enough to kill a handful(literal handful), and then their dead awkward scent seems to prevent the live ones from coming around. I wouldn't recommend putting a trap near roses though as they will probably just attract more than there was. I think the only time I would use a trap is if it was so bad, that it couldn't be any worse by not using one. I would probably place a trap somewhere far away from the roses, then put the dead JBs around the roses or in a container by the roses.

Jeffcat, that's a thought I've had many times. We collect jars throughout the winter in which to drown the beetles. When the jars get full and start stinking, I place them one by one under the roses. It hasn't worked yet as our infestations are so bad, but I bet it would help with lesser infestations. Warning though: your beds will stink. I don't mind the smell of alfalfa tea, but 2 things I can't stomach, the stench of Miss Kim lilac and the stink of decaying beetles.

I've had a couple thoughts about the JBs this year also. First, I put cheap netting over my raspberries and have only seen 2 JBs in there this season, which is great! I also have a theory I'm testing this year. I have noticed in past years that I tend to follow the same path day after day in hand-picking, and I wonder whether they leave some sort of scent on the leaves they spend time on, so I'm going to try taking off the leaves I catch them on after I hand-pick them and see what happens.
I also wonder about leaving them alone. In nature you hear of populations growing so large that they use up the food supply and then crash, and I wonder whether that might happen with JBs, but I'm not willing to put it to the test in my garden. If someone else wanted to, though, I'd be really interested in the result.

Well, I am dedicating my Bella Roma tree rose as a JB smorgasbord. She almost operates as a TRAP. Please go away.

Enchanted Evening has become my JB rose of choice. I have yet to see a full bloom on the rose. First it was the nasty wet spring and now the JBs. They are so attracted to this rose that even if there is a hint of a petal left on EE they are on it. Of course when they finish they move on to the other roses. I'm with Susan....they need to go away.

I am shocked at how low our numbers are, so far. Like mehearty, we are dealing with very low temps, lots and lots of rain, and a brutally cold winter last season. Today i only poicked TWO off my roses, and I have an Ebb Tide in full flush, and an Angel Face blooming. Both are favorites.

Greenhaven, I am in NW Indiana about 30 miles east of Chicago. I got 10 off of my beautiful tree rose. I will keep my fingers crossed for your good luck with our little friends.

No decrease in numbers here by Peoria, IL (sigh). I had my fingers crossed and hoping because we had a brutually cold winter and lots of rain this spring and summer, but they're like cockroaches; they simply won't go away.

Rose de Rescht is their rose of choice in my garden. DH even saw them in the oak trees. Is there ANYTHING they don't eat?

One was even in the restaurant the other day buzzing around...gross. And on Sunday when we took our grandson to the local waterpark, they were in the pool. I'm sick of 'em. Yep, they need to go away.
-terry

I broke. They showed up about a week ago, tried as many natural or less bad remedies, and still they ate every light colored rose I had. And my roses were doing SOO well up to then!
They left the Pinata rose alone. But after trying every natural remedy, and then Sevin, I went back to the nursery and they recommended Bayer's special rose care spray.
Well, one misting of the stuff and the very next day all the beetles were gone or dead. Interestingly, it didnt bother a single spider, bee or wasp, which was fine by me!

Our corn fed (ribs still showing) local doe has left us alone for the last few days. I think that she got a taste of JBs on a stick! LOL!

D-

Fascinating conversation. Here in the Ottawa Canada area I never noticed any Japanese Beetles until a few years ago, although I've had roses for about 20 years. I wish they "just lasted a few weeks", but even here in chilly zone 4B the irridescent green vampires hang around pretty much the whole summer and into fall, sucking the life out of the rose blooms. Sure roses are bothered by other things, but nothing like the Japanese Beetles, at least for me. I have a very early rose (Therese Bugnet) that gets a few blooms out before they take over, but then it's a free for all.

I have noticed that the most fragrant (Hansa and Blanc Double de Coubert) are the most popular and they don't even open before the blooms are totally covered and devoured even with twice daily visits and "debugging". They are less aggressive on my Knockouts and my Carefree Wonder, the Knockouts seeming to be the very least bothered of all my roses, but they are also the farthest physically from the most scented roses. After they find the roses they are on to the raspberries (leaves) and they bury themselves into the hibisucs syriacus (rose of sharon) blooms.

Ah, yest they certainly do fly and probably 1/3 of mine never "drop" into my soapy water container, regardless of how many partners they are mating with at the moment or how carefully I "sneak up" or how close I hold the container.

I did see a suggestion of using geraniums to "draw the beetles away". They are supposed to be attracted to them, eat the geranium flowers and then fall over and pass out like drugged party goers so you could sweep them up. Sounded worth a try. This article didn't specify a colour and I had bright pink geraniums. Even when I put the pots of geraniums directly under my handsome "Hansa" they didn't land on the geraniums. Since then I've read that it's the white geraniums that they go for. So, if anyone wants to give that a try, I'd love to know if the white ones work for anyone. Or I've also heard of using catmint, or members of the onion or allium family planted close to the roses Going to give those a try since many are pretty and purple anyway, but I think you'd need something with persistant leaves to keep the scent going.

I'm thinking perhaps I should get more of the early blooming roses like Therese Bugnet so that I might enjoy the blooms before the vampires descend, but I really want my roses to bloom all summer and for as long as possible.

Just as a point of interest I do work in a garden centre and none of our roses had a Japanese Beetle. I had to fight off other rose thugs that I don't remember, but no Japanese Beetles. Perhaps it's the fact that the garden centre is on pavement and not surrounded by lawn where the lady vampires (JB's) lay their eggs and the adults winter over.

Mary

I noticed the beetles on my daughter's Rose's last week and they were all over her white rose while not on her dark pink rose at all. They both smelled wonderful, both planted ar the same time and even bloomed the same time.

Sorry not much help here but I did think it was kind of strange.

For some they do seem to like the whites more. Not the case for me. For me the favorite seems to be Hansa which is a deep sort of crimson fuschia which has a wonderful scent. But a few still on my William Baffin even though I don't let any blooms develop before I pull them off. Lately I've noticed they are particularly fond of an ornamental pussy willow and any tiny little piece of wild grape vine or wild virginia creeper. They do prefer real hot sun and humidity though. Those with some cooling shade at some point in the day seem to do better.