Vera, here are my sprouts. they are from seeds fallen from last year. the bunch that is by my foundation - they came up about a month ago, and withstood the really cold weather we had for 10 days in early March. the lil one on the right -- that is about 2 days old. the other already has it's second set of leaves. where it was mentioned "they need light" all of these are on the south side of my house... so I guess they do get "light" (originally when i read that, i was thinking "glow lights") and it's possible mine come up early is they are more protected by the foundation, warmer and get a lot of sun - which warms the soil earlier. if anyone needs/wants seeds... i still have tons (that's my plant posted above) ... and if anyone is in the chicago area... you can come over and dig up seedlings... my neighbor has tons too, which she also pulls out the excess.

zookeeper, maybe you've got the beetles confused with the Asian ladybugs? I don't think they eat other bugs but plant material, could be wrong. I've read this from several different sources otherwise wouldn't use wiki. "The insect was first found in the United States in 1916 in a nursery near Riverton, New Jersey. It is thought that beetle larvae entered the United States in a shipment of iris bulbs prior to 1912 when inspections of commodities entering the country began." Goes on talking about how first spotted in Nova Scotia in 1939. From New Jersey, they have slowly and relentlessly fanned out, working their way north, south and westward. But they're not much of a problem in FL or the Gulf states and much west of Iowa. The Rockies and deserts provide a natural barrier of sorts, but it appears they've gotten into the Pacific NW and working their way down to CA. Here's Purdue's alltime distribution map, don't like wiki's map because it just shows eastern US. Known natural predators include the Praying Mantis, but it would take a ton of them. Also (I read a lot of this on the OGR forum) people report their ducks, wild turkeys, starlings eat them. The turkeys poop them out dead but undigested, saw a very yucky photo of that someone posted from the east coast who was having a horrid time that year. I used to see brown birds, possibly an unfamiliar (to me) woodpecker) feeding in lots of lawns around here and under my birch trees, wondered what they were eating. I now think they were eating the grubs, but I haven't seen those lately, had been feeding them. They are carnivores. People didn't like them and put up fake owls to scare them away . . . But I'm with you 100% about importing things without considering negative consequences, some of which aren't known until it's too late. That's why I'm cautious about the U of MI experiment and the tachinid fly, much as I'm hoping for relief. I'm thinking when they really hit the grape, almond and fruit crops in CA, there will be more agitation to find the best eradicator. They will spray, and that means more stuff to worry about on and in our food. Sevin on the instructions tells exactly when to quit spraying on food crops, like I'm supposed to go by that? I only spray my cherry trees after they have fruited which may have been earlier than usual last year before they showed up Jun 21 in my yard. It was about a week later the year before. Sorry the map makes you scroll to the right but one of the best ones I know. Here is a link that might be useful: Japanese Beetle - Wikipedia

Hi tech, I truley wish I could send these out to everybody who wants one...I have more than 30 cuttings and that's not what I have left on CG's & Frosty stalks down in the basement. My garden buddies around here will be all over them, just don't know how many they have room for. I'm trying to get them well rooted and leaves on first and some are starting to and ya all know what that means. I had to unpot one 7 I had potted up as I don't think all the nubbies it had could take care of the size of the stalk. I put as much under the dirt as possible so to allow as many roots as possible to grow but only after I know it's not dying back while rooting so I know what'll live after it's got roots and stopped any rubberizing/drying out of stalk tips. The only thing I did wrong was to assume nubbies would work for the size I was growing which were at least 1' tall. I needed at least 1" roots for that size. Hey Jim S- those frilly raggedy flower heads are big dahlias. There are lots of us who fans of those to. They make great cut flowers to, if even just one to bring but they are from tubers and have to be dug out for overwintering to...but at least they aren't nearly the trouble to bring a brug in, even 20 of those is less trouble then even one brug I brought in but I wrestled to bring in a triple stalk CG of a height of 5 1/2 ' not including the huge pot I had to manage very thick stiff long roots in. A women in my condition would be considered 'attempting suicide' for doing such a thing. I had to use my screwed on head (with another bad disc not to mention the others in my back) to balance that thing while getting the roots in. Proud to say I did not cut a single root...lol Come to think of it maybe one.

Peoria, Az (Phoenix suburb) - Zone 9b I haven't heard anyone comment regarding the use of pre-emergence to control the seedlings and am wondering if this would be effective to help control the population? I just purchased seeds, but haven't yet planted after reading all the negative experiences of deeper, bigger tubers each year and seeds spreading like weeds. If I plant one or two seeds (hoping one grows) and use pre-emergence to control the seed germination, does anyone think this will work? I'm also not sure where many of you are growing them or have them growing, so I'm wondering if culture (climate, soil etc.) is a factor in the rampant spread and difficult eradication? My soil is as hard as a rock - in fact, it's mostly several layers of caliche in between heavily compressed clay soil. Planting holes require a small jackhammer, so I'm terrified of having to "dig" to try and remove an unwanted tuber or six😁 in future years. (also just an fyi, my soil is not necessarily typical of all soil in the Phx area. We've lived in a few homes and each has had varying degrees of caliche and different types of soils, depending on location, backfill, etc..)