If you have JBs bad enough, you'll get their grubs in your garden beds. Yes they will feed on the roots of whatever they're laying under. My dh uses GrubX. As much as we wanted to stay organic, there's nothing strong enough for these muthas in such apocalytic numbers. Personally, I'd like to firebomb the entire lawn, but dh thinks that's a bit much. =P There's a possibility those grubs are the young of a different kind of beetle. You can bring a carcass into your local garden center for ID. Or you could just indiscriminately poison the cr*p out of them whatever kind they are. When it comes to beetles, I've learned to have a hard heart.

They could be any number of caterpiller, larvae, etc... without pics and more info it would be difficult to make an exact ID. I simply pinch them between my fingers when I find them. They are probably some type of sawfly larvae, at least that is what I get here. The ones I typically get are green with whitish spots down the length of their body. Sawflies are a small non-stinging type of wasp. Adult sawflies are not a problem, but the larvae are. Sawfly larvae are also called Roseslugs. They feed from May to September for 2-3 weeks when they are in larval stage, and then they change into adult flies and the feeding stops. The reason they are called roseslugs because of their slug-like appearance. The larvae also resemble caterpillars, but they are not true caterpillars. There are several types of sawflies that attack roses as larvae. The bristly roseslug is a major pest on roses. The larvae are pale green, with a brownish-orange head and very small, bristlelike hairs. They skeletonize the leaf from the underside when small, and then chew holes through the leaf as they enlarge. The curled rose sawfly occurs in lesser numbers, but each one can cause relatively substantial damage. The curled rose sawfly larvae skeletonize leaves when small and eat the whole leaf, except the main vein, when large. To make matters worse, when they pupate they bore into the pith of twigs, killing portions of the twig and opening it up for fungal infections. The larva has a yellowish head with black eye spots, and a pastel green body with white dots down the length of it. The roseslug is the third type of sawfly to occur on roses. It looks somewhat similar to the bristly roseslug, but lacks the hairs. It skeletonizes the upper surface of a leaf. Easiest way to treat them, is to mechanically pluck them off and squish them. If the damage is widespread across many rose bushes in your garden and a lot of damage is being sustained, chemical control should be considered. Just about any contact insecticide labeled for use on roses will kill the roseslugs. Try to use the least toxic one possible, because you don't want to kill beneficial insects in your garden.

My roses did very well for a few months after I planted them this past spring. They slowly declined almost to death by July. Just yesterday, I realized one was not going to make it so I pulled it out. While turning the soil in the hole there were at least 20 grubs!! Now of course, I'm wondering if that was the reason they were doing so poorly. I am from Long Island and never had a problem growing anything and had beautiful roses, so I am new to growing anything in Az.I have used DE in my garden for ants, but I am wondering if I should add DE to the soil now, as I was planning on putting new rose bushes in the same holes before I found the grubs. Any solutions or advice will be welcomed. Thanks

ALERT: THE SCENT OF ALFALFA ATTRACT ALL ANIMALS, including squirrels, dogs, rabbits and deer. From the web: "Deer love to eat alfalfa hay and will flock to established alfalfa plots. Animals like rats, dogs, bears, and bloodhounds have some of the most incredible noses ... These animals can detect a scent from a considerable distance and have a good sense of taste as well." I saw how squirrels ate my rootings in June, so I chopped up strong scent Italian Basil and put in my air-pots. The scent of Basil stopped the squirrels from eating roses in air-pots. I used invasive mint before to repel deer from my roses in the front. My TALL air-pots never have squirrels jumping in it, until I fertilized them with a STRONGER DOSE of alfalfa, since I'm out of ORGANIC Nature's Care soluble fertilizer. Thank God that the squirrels didn't eat the 10 buds of 4-months old Augusta Luis (bought as band-size from LongAgoRoses), see below: Early June a rooting did great, until I fertilized with alfalfa tea, squirrels are attracted to the scent of alfalfa and ate that rooting 1/2 off. Same with another 2 rose rootings: squirrels jumped into the pot and dug up both, after being fertilized with alfalfa tea. Besides squirrels, ALL ANIMALS are attracted to the smell of alfalfa, including rabbits, deer, and dogs. My 19-year-old daughter wants a pet bunny, and she asked me to get alfalfa to feed her future bunny. One time I poured a bag of alfalfa meal into the planting hole, and a dog broke away from its owner to rush to me. That dog was FAR AWAY (at least 1/4 acre away). I'm amazed that animals can sniff that far. That same evening, that dog which lived 3 houses away, broke loose from its home to my backyard in search of alfalfa. The dog was so attracted to the alfalfa smell that it came back the 2nd time. The owner came to my backyard looking for her dog. Years ago, when Ingrid had a problem with rabbits eating her roses in CA, she mentioned that she fertilized her roses ONLY with alfalfa meal. I wish I had known this earlier to inform Ingrid so she would not have quit roses altogether thanks to rabbits and drought. These pests have sensitive nose, farmers used to dunk corn-cobs in vinegar to repel rabbits. Another suggestion is to soak stinky ammonia in paper towel and put that in pots to repel squirrels and chipmunks.