these are asian or japanese beetles, very terrible pest, search plant eating japanese beetles for info... very destructive they come from grubs, only out late at night, see them eat with flashlight, knock into pan of soapy water to kill, best to kill there larva now to august or they will return with a vengeance. these are a little known pest eating all trees and vegetation all over the US. They LOVE mint, peppers, thyme, most herbs, spices, sunflowers...dont eat tomatos for some reason...if you see little green "grasshoppers"? DONT KILL THEM, they are baby praying mantises there to eat your beetles, they are your best friends... best of luck, Steve

Okay, I GOT it! I tried a new method for removing the eggs from leaves this evening. I had thought that perhaps dental floss may be a way to help get the eggs off easily since not everyone has fingernails and scraping the eggs off seems a bit, well, harsh. So, I went and got one of those dental floss pick thingies like this one and used it as a scraping tool. It worked! It was very easy, too. All you have to do is slightly bend/wrap the leaf around your finger (you can hold it with your third/'tall man' finger and thumb if you wrap it around your second/'pointer'/index finger). Hold the leaf over a cup/container. With your other hand holding the 'scraper' you simply swipe the dental floss between the egg and the leaf into the cup/container. IF the egg sticks, it will stick to the dental floss and you can easily flick it into the cup/container. I did not squish/smash a single egg using this new 'tool.' So, I think I will try it out tomorrow with a BUNCH of eggs. I used it on some leaves that had eggs on it from earlier in the day (really limp leaves) and it worked easily as well. :) I knew there had to be something that would be easy to use, particularly for those with big, clumsy fingers or arthritic hands... NOTE: I used the pointy part of the pick to help move eggs around. You could use a 2nd one to remove/flick eggs that stick to the dental floss if you don't want to flick with your fingertips.

Yesterday, I got all the cats changed to another container. The leaves had pretty much dried out, but after checking, the cats were doing fine. I must have had eggs, too, because I saw 2 hatching as I worked with them. The cats are so clever! As they move down to the second leaf to feed, they first chew thru the petiole to make the leaf hang down which causes the leaf to fold in half lengthwise so the tiny cat can "stitch" it closed to create its nest. They are so tiny I'm afraid I'm going to squish one as I change out the food and container. I just think that this caterpillar performs an amazing feat in fashioning its nest. I, for one, am very impressed!

Saschja, I just now saw this comment from you in July......never got a notice in e-mail. So sorry to have not responded. You can e-mail me directly at free2bebrian and the @ and then gmail.com. My name is Jan. We still have walking sticks, but have managed to keep them limited. Takes a lot of plucking. The best remedy I found is watering the plants and watching for them moving out of the wet zone. They don't like water. Then I grab them and either kill them, which I hate doing, or put them in the yard waste bin. The problem with not killing them is the risk that they just get put somewhere else via the yard waste recycling. Mostly I suck up my buddhist impulses and kill them. But its hard. Write to me and we can talk directly. The brown and green are the same, just adjusted to the different color plant part they are on usually. So sorry you have a major infestation. Not a good sign for PG. Jan