Thanks, Carol. Right now the tough plants that like it harsh are saving my sanity. It's 103F currently, and I can now declare the winners of the heatathon. One I expected and one is a surprise. Both big Julias and Ballerina (unexpected) are the winners. Ascot and one of my Bernstein-Rose plants are the runners up. Every other rose of mine has blooms totally of crunchy cereal. There is nothing left. What's bad is we have no end in sight to the heat so far, and it started around June 9, so...worst spring/summer in my life. I can whine with the best of them! Thanks for mentioning the pink penstemon, which is done blooming and has been cut back. But Red Rocks persists.

Nature, I garden in zone 7, in the desert hills outside of Boise, Idaho (southwest part of the state), and normally we have fairly mild winters. I think we had a couple of days last winter that got down to 10F. We have little snow. There are exceptions when the weather gods decide to punish us, but the only harsh winter I've experienced in this location in 17 winters was 2016-7. I've grown a number of Moonbeam coreopsis over the years, and it is quite good, but only lasts 3-5 years here. Yours is splendid, and I hope it continues to perform for you and keep getting bigger. Moonbeam is a classic, but coreopsis like Mercury Rising and Raspberry Frost (or something like that), plus others are total duds for me. These may not even make it through one winter. The breeders are going for novelty over practicality. I quit buying coreopsis about 6 years ago, and have switched to other plants. From what I've seen and read over the years, Mr Lincoln is tall, very upright, and kind of skinny. I don't know if pruning can change this growth habit. Maybe growing more than one plant fairly close together would help. I use a wall of lavender behind a wall of butterfly bush and heliopsis to discourage deer. I also grow lots of boxwood which our deer hate and leave alone. I have a long mental list of plants that deer dislike on which I depend. They hate penstemon for one. Diane

Mary - tens of thousands!!!! Holy Hannah!! :(

Diane - I'm surprised your Ascot is heat tolerant...it doesn't look like it would be. Thank heavens for your tough roses and plants!

Carol, Ascot is heat tolerant up to a point, so its blooms are a combo of crunchies and non crunchies, which will be crunchies the next day. Confused? However, Ascot is much better than all my other dark red and purple roses. It's been a trouper. There's nothing like a Canadian rose to be heat tolerant! I guess it's German, too. It's funny, but your roses are going to come through in the end while the rest of us will have crunchies. And you were so worried. How are the streps? I haven't much about them lately.

Mary, I agree dying beetles are the best kind. I murdered hundreds of blister beetles with my gloved hands several years ago, and they have never returned. I popped them individually, and it took about two weeks of diligent popping. Very satisfying. They were nasty little beasts. Diane

Diane - I'm hoping that they'll all live...but I think there are a few more dead ones. My streps are doing really well!! I'm thinking of trying to hybridize them this fall!!! My daughter is going to take a few of my streps with her...so I took some leaf cuttings to make new plants. I love dithering with my streps...cutting off spent blooms, watering, cutting off old leaves, etc. They're a lot of fun...and they do really well for me, unlike my roses (which I still love more than the streps). :) :)

Good morning gorgeous gardeners….

I feel lucky to be in touch with so many experienced people. Such good information. my yard is still mostly a blank slate that im gradually filling in - my focus is on organic sustainable garden with lots of natives. it’s a slow progress but i’m getting there.

we finally had a good bit of rain last night to bring the temperature down. we already had so many days reaching 90s in May-June that i wonder what will happen end of Jul-August. this is highly unusual for our area.

update on Midas Touch-

She produced three more blooms on a single stem this morning. they have beetle damage all over but intact. i have cut and turned into a flower arrangement. better in a vase than being turned into chewed rug while i’m gone. luckily i’m not seeing much of beetle damage on any other plant (knock on the wood).

"monsters in shiny armors" Great description. They remind me of ticks the way they're so tough...

I just discovered a whole bunch of them today....

I have a smaller/new garden and try to go outside with a bucket of soap water and knock them off plants into the bucket. I'm not sure if weather matters but we just had a thunderstorm yesterday and I see a lot of them all of a sudden. They're hovering around a large currently fruiting viburnum tree near a couple of rose bushes.

They make a sound like bees before they land so you can use your sense of hearing to help you hunt them. I managed to get about a dozen of them in the span of 20 minutes. Not fun on a hot, humid day but I want to save my newly (this spring) pot planted roses such as these Olivia Austins:

These Japanese Beatles seem to be having an orgy over here. They might like the Olivia Austins even more than I do!

Japanese Beetle hiding in the petals...

It's like they're little cavity makers... An example of mild bloom damage on a bloom so far:

I think the effort is worth it but I'm new to roses so we'll see. Good luck!

Man those little monsters in shiny armor (that IS a really good description)...I think that so many people here have gotten rid of their JBs that the effort is definitely worth it. Good luck and good hunting!

Ick. I've read about their orgies, nasty things. So are they too fast to pop with your gloved fingers? I could decimate blister beetles at the rate of at two per second, but they were sluggish types if you were careful to sneak up on them. If you moved the bloom even slightly, they would drop to the ground. Japanese beetles must have a harder shell, too. We have our share of ticks around here, especially with our fluffy cat's encouragement. Diane

I think that one was sleeping or something because they can be fast and escape. With the bucket I can get a whole bunch of them in it with one hand movement.

Anybody happen to know what this insect is which I found on some roses? Friend of foe?

😡

OMG!! Get a spray bottle and add some dishwashing liquid right away!! The soap suffocates them and will kill them on contact!!

@natureinspiredM_ 6B NJ I hope its okay to circle back to birds real quick! I too love swallows and their amazing flight shows! I call them my arieal acrobatics. I did not have any until I installed a huge tall gourd house! Now I have swallow babies every year without fail! Its avsolutely magical to watch them fledge and soar through the sky for their very first time. I would highly suggest setting up a gourd pole site to everyone! They even have ones with necks that protect the swallow babies from hawks and crackles.

Just had to share for anyone who wants to watch swallows!

As for japanese beetles they have taken over my yard too. They destroy the one rose bush I have and eat up all my gladiolus. I have been doing lots of research because I have had it with them! I too am trying the milky spore across my yard this fall but I am also pairing it with benefical nematodes! So it is a double whammy! I hope it will make it managble enough for me to pluck them off as you say. But if its as bad as it is for me then I say give nematodes a try as well! They can be paired! I almost feel bad for them because they arent invasive where they naturally come from. But man they need to get lost here. Also the trap will draw them from a mile away so if you can find a place to put a trap a mile from your house it would help! But if its not that far from your roses then you‘re drawing your neighbors beetles as well. (one lady did it and all her nieghbors benefited.) You will draw them because they smell the hormone but not all will stop at the trap, some will get distracted by your roses. So it really only works for people with large properties.

I have also heard of having cat mint near your roses can help deter them.

But you can also plant geraniums away from your roses as a more natural trap. They love geraniums and will flock to eat them, but then eating geraniums sends them in to a comatose state for about 10 hours, making it easier for the birds to eat and for you to drown them! Id personally rather sacrifice geraniums then my rose. :) And that way it isnt a pheramone that is drawing them from a mile. Just a sneaky distraction.

Okay that was a long post on my part but I hope it helped! The main thing I like to do this time of year is simply bring in my gladiolus to enjoy inside! Here is a picture :)

Sarena, beautiful glads! I've never had luck with sparrows eating JBs and we get A LOT of birds in our yard. That said, we have bird feeders placed around our property, so maybe that's why. Still, I wouldn't put out the JBs traps as I've heard that it attracts all of the beetles in the neighborhood to your yard! LOL. We live next to a huge corn field, so I'm sure that's where they are coming from. I have one rose that they haven't touched, which I'm not sure why. It's the dark red rose called, Dancing in the Dark. It's still in a pot as I picked it up at Home Depot. It's right next to Lavender Crush (also, in a pot), which they devoured the blooms. I sprayed them yesterday, took my dogs for a 20 min walk and when I came back, the JBs were on the ground, dead as a doornail! Gotta love that soapy water and neem oil mixture!

You know I have tried neem oil in the past but did not see a huge improvement but maybe adding the soapy water to it as you say would help! Does anyone see some damage on their rose from the soapy water though? Also is neem oil harsh to the other friendly insects? I am hoping the milky spore and nematodes works for me because I don’t want to harm all my friendly bugs! Pray mantises are my favorite! Oh we live next to a huge corn field as well. :) I was kind of creeped out by it until I found my beautiful sweet crying abandoned kitten in it a year ago. Then I trampled through that corn field to get him without hesitation haha. He was so skinny and near death but he’s my big beautiful baby boy now and loves to garden! I will have to look at the Rose you mentioned, sounds like a beauty. :) I love dark red roses. Seriously considering getting munstead wood.

Dear all,

Thanks again for the invaluable information. for the record my trap is long gone. all in all it lasted in the garden for about 36 hrs. And did not make any difference in beetle counts on my Midas Touch. and thanks to you all for the helpful feedback on how best to use. i dont have such a big lot to put the trap far away - so better to chuck that thing.

@ashley, your picture perfectly sums up what i had been seeing on poor Midas.

these are nasty bugs.

Thanks @bellarosa for confirming neem oil works on the JBs. i got 100% pure cold pressed one. it does recommend mixing with mild soap to ensure emulsification. I’m planning on spraying as soon as the rains stop.

@Sarena Altman (7a Middle TN), beautiful glads, and the view out the window is eaqually delightful. i have the hardy nanus picotee in red, white and pink- reliably coming back and muliplying for three years in my zone 6 garden without any winter protection. but not as showy as yours. they start setting buds about now and willl start blooming from end of July.

i will look up gourd pole. honestly i never spotted swallows even in the sureounding wilderness in the five years of living in and around Summit, NJ. i naturally try to spot different birds when we go for local hikes. one bird that i do get in my backyard quite a lot is mocking bird. they visit frequently when the black cherry tree has ripe fruits all over. love their shirilly songs.

i have been researching neem quite a bit - all sources confirm neem oil doesn’t harm beneficials, pets or wild animals. but need to be applied during cooler part of the day. now that i have all my ingredients delivered i am ready to spray (Hopefully tomorrow). will update you all on the experience.

@Stopandsm NJ you are further north from me judging by your Zone. i read that these monsters are hyper active for two weeks in each area and the season is spread over all of summer months depending upon zones. in my garden the peak destruction started happening from around last week Tuesday and now tapering down. i could smell the nasty pheromones all over my backyeard long before the damage started becoming visible, even though initally i was not sure what the smell was (took squishing few bugs to understand 🤪). i think you will see the activities drop in about a week.

Long post again, but truly want to thank you all and share my experience as much as i can. i feel at home when i am talking to you all about garden.

Bellarose I will try the spray bottle concoction. We also live next to a cornfield!

My JBs usually emerge right around the 4th of July - I guess they are patriotic! LOL. Good luck everyone with the soap/neem oil mixture. BTW, I've read that you will have to spray your roses again if it rains as it washes the mixture off, I'm assuming. Not a big deal, I think. As long as I can get a few blooms, I'm happy!

Growing roses is not for the faint of heart, am I right? 🤣 right when my poor roses were recovering from the thrips invasion the JBs arrived. Ugh! They are so gross, and the orgy is crazy!! I go out multiple times a day to crunch them. Now, reading above seems killing them it’s not a good idea as it attracts more?!

Gosh, the past 2 days I was in the office, when I came back my roses were all eaten. They even eat the leaves!

I will try the neem oil with soap!

@bellarosa what measurements did you use, abs it has to be on contact to kill it?

I’m sorry your poor rose was eaten! That’s the worst when they eat the leaves too because then it will be still be damaged when they’re gone soon. ): So I wanted to suggest that one rose expert spoke of deflowering your roses during their reign of horror. So your bushes will be sparred and once the beetles leave it can flower happily again.

Ashley - horrible!!!! Wretched things!!

Diane - you're the Queen of Squish! :) :)

Sarena - what a good idea about the geraniums! Lovely glads!! Awwww :) :) You rescued your corn kitty!! I'm so glad that worked out. :)

Ceres - oh no, not your roses too! Even the leaves are gone. You are so right...not for the faint of heart! You need to suit up with your armour and go to battle!!

Ceres, I just add a few drops of neem oil and dishwashing liquid. It definitely works. Good luck!

@natureinspiredM_ 6B Yes, I am further in zone 6A. You make an important point about them being hyperactive for specific times. Thank heavens it won't be a constant battle.

If there comes a time when I need to squish them, I'll have a sniff to see what I smell. In the meantime, I'll keep my cup of soapy water handy.

Looks like the beetle bettle is over (for this season)…

they clearly have moved on either due to the constant rain in past 36 hours or because they are done with their mating frenzy and probably busy laying eggs.

even without the neem application my westerland that has started a second flush since yesterday morning is untouched. but the damages made at bud stage are noticeable.

thanks to you all now i have much more knowledge to tackle the monsters next season. i will apply milky spores this fall. i think i will skip nimatodes as they cannnot survive the freezing winter here. and both are quite expensive. but the spores supposed to last in garden soil at least a decade.

@Stopandsm NJ if you have a sensitive nose like mine, you wont even have to take a sniff. it will not skip your nose. i can detect even the faintest of smells that others cant smell - its an irritating bane. it is like im living the years old pregnancy stmptoms 24x7 😂

Ms. Westerland this morning

Nature - very cheerful Westerland!! I love that orange!! You have a superpower!!! I bet it makes food taste even more delicious!!

Thanks @rosecanadian…

when i bought it didnt know what to expect. the tag only said fragrant climbing rose (thanks to Houzz for correct ID). in a single year it has grown nicely and already producing a second flush of flowers (the first one was in late May-early june). I love the frangrance as well. It is not very goood at handling temperature above 80s though. We had few days touching 90 in May and the flowers were fried in a single day. one thing about this rose i dont like is how it fades to an ugly shade of pink when the weather is too hot (80s). i think it prefers and performs best in cooler temperature (60-70 d). it is supposed to reach 12’ height but i plan on keeping it pruned to about 6’

That ‘superpower’ is more of nuicense unless im with my flowers. i love the necter frangrance most flowers emit and bet my nose helps to enhance. btw hot pepper flowers have a very subtle coolish kind of fragrance.

but otherwise its not a cool power to have. i can’t tolerate most of the perfumes, can smell food long after dinner is over, run to take a shower as soon as done cooking, get irritated when hubby forgets deo and so on. He says i was a dog in my past life 😃

@natureinspiredM_ 6B NJ That is cool. Are there any flower scents you don't like? I smelled a Tess of the d’Urbervilles rose and it smelled either medicinal to me and another time unpleasant, like a dog waste smell! I'm so confused because the scent is described as "Old Rose" on David Austin's website but it smelled nothing like Gertrude Jekyl's Old rose scent, to me anyway.

Nature - LOL LOL... a dog in your past life!! :) :) Yeah, now that you explain it further...I can see that it would be a nuisance. I'm a supertaster for bitter. I've tasted things that are bitter and the taste stays for a few days. I can't get rid of it. I think that's one reason why I gain so much weight...I can't stand bitter and love sweet. :) But then most people love sweet. :)

Stopandsmell - I smelled dog pee whenever I smelled a certain Austin rose...can't remember the name...hmmm....needless to say...that rose is gone. :)

Morning…

Stopan, most flowers dont bother me, nature seems to know how much is too much. based on you and Rosec‘s experience sounds like i won’t like certain roses. that reminds me once i tried to smell a miniature rose in the grocery store and it smelled funky. i attributed that to the foiler feed but now having a second thought.

if we are to talk about unusual flower fragrance, i must mention my beatiful Calicanthus aphrodite. this sweetshrub has huge eye-catching flowers unlike the regular varieties, which smell like ripe fruite - more like strawberry and banana mashed togeter or fruit custard. But the fragrance is subtle enough to be noticeable only during morning and evening hours, that also when one makes an effort to smell.

Natureinspired: if you like C. Aphrodite, you will love Calycanthus "Michael Lindsey"!

It fills my garden with the smell of very ripe fruit -- verging on fermented fruit in a good way. It blooms heavily the month of June and then keeps it up lightly all summer. One plant will fill a whole backyard. I do have to protect it in the winter with a wire cage because the rabbits love the bark. Other than that, it is a healthy super fragrant plant; it is native too!

The pale greenish- yellow version "Athens" is sweetly fragrant, but it only fills its general area with scent.

I noticed that Proven Winners has come out with a strongly scented variety this year called "Simply Scentsational" https://www.gardencrossings.com/product/calycanthus-simply-scentsational/ I haven't seen or smelled it yet; it it hard to believe a plant could be better than Michael Lindsey.

Other than named varieties, you do have to sniff them in bloom to make sure they are scented. Just buying the straight species can give you a healthy unscented plant. Here in Michigan, they like partial sun/semi-shade & evenly moist well-drained soil.

Japanese Beetles are not attracted to petunias, I grow these in a basket to brighten the summer garden.

The roses are repeat blooming but not continuous blooming, I don't have masses of colorful blooms to attract beetles when they emerge in summer.

If I see beetles on the roses I shake the branch, let them fall to the ground.

I've learned to live with insect damage as I think it's easiest to garden when working with nature. I try to create a garden that is hospitable for predators, allow them to keep insect populations in check.

Many years ago I tried Neem and soapy sprays, but I don't use them anymore. I was concerned that the residues could contaminate the garden and potentially harm beneficial insects.

Placing traps FAR AWAY from one's rose garden works in reducing the number of beetles. After 7 years of placing traps (killed thousands of beetles) there's a drastic reduction, down to very few in traps, and very few on roses. First year of placing traps the bags were overflowed, and I had to change bags often. Last year I used the same bag for the entire year, with less than 40 beetles each time of crushing them & feeding to the birds. This year I spotted only 1 beetle on a leaf, and none on my blooms. Last year I witnessed the birds gathering around the beetle-trap to hunt beetles down.

For the past 10 years, beetles like looser-petals (hybrid teas like Firefighter, Pink Peace, Betty White, and knock-outs are heavily devoured). I use a large plastic bag to shake the beetles into the bag, then stomp on them with my feet.

Beetles don't get into TIGHT-PACKED & zillion of petals roses with myrrh scent. They dislike myrrh scent of Francis Blaise, Mary Magdalene, St. Cecilia, Scepter'd Isle, Tess of d'ubervilles, but they go after the fruity scents (Sharifa Asma with looser petals).

Beetles can't get into tight-packed & zillion petals red-roses either. I never see beetles on below red-roses with many petals (upper red is Barcelona, Right dark-red is Munstead Wood, left light-red is W.S. 2000, and lowest is The Dark Lady. So far zero beetles on Rouge Royal with 3 blooms opened as of July 6.

Straw - I'm so happy that you have eradicated JBs in your area!! Well done!! Gorgeous roses as always!!!

Mary - I'm so happy that you've stopped them in their tracks. Well done! :) :)

Straw how far is far? Would 150 feet be enough distance?

Thugs are back…

as soon as sun came out they returned to ravage the only rose blooming right now (westerland). neem is not really deterring them but i heard the next genration will get destroyed if the adults ingest neem oil. it rained so many times in last 10 days that i doubt the neem application stayed on. surprisingly they are attracted only to the rose. i dont seem to find them on other flowers blooming right now.

BUT today i had the pleasure of knocking them right into the soapy water. too bad im not home Mon-Fri.

i just used an old coffee mug full of soap water. here are the kills after three trips every two hours or so- all from the three poor roses.

Thank you! Man I am really tempted to try it then. I worry I am still drawing more from all over but I’d love to dwindle down my population and I am sure all my neighbors would appreciate it as well.

I’m planning to do milky spore! I’ve heard grub ex can harm the good bugs. I was going to do beneficial nematodes as well but they are larvae so they would eat my beautiful fireflies as well. But milky spore they say won’t harm the fireflies so I’m going with that! Wish me luck, I have about an acre to cover

But they eat larvae**

ill post pictures tomorrow but they destroyed every single rose here, except New Dawn.

leaves and all. and i didn’t actually have that many like others have mentioned.

i sprayed today and they are dead, but the roses look like a bunch of toothpicks

It’s a firework display here as well! Fireflies take my breath away. And gosh I am so sorry to everyone’s poor roses being eaten. ): I have only the one bush and it gets destroyed as well. I’m seriously considering deflowering my bushes next year so the foliage isn’t eaten and they can go back to normal once the beetles leave.

@Sarena Altman (7a Middle TN) i doubt disbudding will help as they eat the leaves and everything else on the rose lol

Here is the damage on my Mary rose.

and since we are talking about companion plants, let me suggest Gaura, new this year for me. so be and delicate! i love it

Gaura, boxwood, lavender and Earth angel

I'm noticing a *little* less Japanese beetles lately around here but hopefully I haven't jinxed it by saying that. I notice if I leave the rose flowers on as long as possible (instead of dead heading) they act as a lure for some of them to climb in. I tip them out into the soapy cup. Sometimes petals fall in too and I just pluck them out using a stick. So far that's all I use. A cup of soap and water. I do a quick walk in the morning and afternoon if I can and get as many as I can see.

I personally have never tried deflowering but I saw it suggested by a rose expert. They are attracted to the smell of the blooms so if there are no flowers come time they are here then they won’t go to your rose or your rose leaves and the damage can be avoided. But it means giving up your rose blooms for about 30 days but then at least your rose isn’t harmed and can be happy in fall! https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8sPnOVTmuso&t=7s this is my reference so I’m not sure but it works for him and he is a rose seller! Just thought I’d share.
And your companion plants are beautiful!

In case the link doesn’t work he is on YouTube under Fraser valley rose farm and the video is “how to control Japanese beetles” it’s really the most detailed video I’ve ever found. So many helpful tips.

@CeresMer Zone 7a NJ your Gaura looks beautiful!!! may it have a healthy long life in your garden. they dont like prolonged wet feet it seems. i had couple planted in spring 2018, bloomed beautifully for few weeks but that year also happened to be wettest year that i could remember in NJ. it rained pretty hard for 6 months or more i think. and i lost both.

bottom line - even though its unlikely we will have a repeat of 2018 anytime soon, make sure was the plants are located in well drained soil. mine were planted in average soil and would probably have survived if not for the exceptional rains that year.

@Sarena Altman (7a Middle TN) observing the beetles in my garden they definitely have favorites. once my Midas Touch roses stopped blooming they were not seen for few days. not even on rose foliage or on other plants. then my Westerland startded blooming again and within two days those were back. interestinly they did not touch my supposedly-julia child-but-more-like-at last rose, which is blooming barely a foot away from where they were enjoying chewing off the Westerland blooms. i started bringing the ready to open buds indoors since two days and they are gone again without touching the other rose, which also is fragrant though more like clover to my nose.

again, no more new leaf damage, though i have damage on all 5 bushes from early summer (i read thatsa when the larvae started feeding on leaves). so, at leat in my garden it seems deflowering is helpful. but they seem to love @CeresMer Zone 7a NJ’s rose leaves as much as the roses, in which case it wont help much. Ceres, do you have fragrant leaves as well? i have one ragusa, ’sir Thomas Lipton’ with delightfully fragrant leaves. even a slight touch transfers the nice rose smell to my hand. this is why wondering. may be the leaves on your rose bush defusing specific essential oil these bugs prefer?

Ohh thats a good point, idk about the leaves being fragant. but their favorites are Mary rose ans Rosematic pink. i think they are almost done here too! today i only spotted 4/5. i have been doing the same thing as above. water and soap on a bucket with a lid, so i throw them in there and close the lid. i told the kids is a beetle soup 😝🥴

next year, i have to start my pest management much earlier. i already saved the the dates when they arrived to be ready for next year.

both thrips and the beetles did some major damage on my second flush. so for next year I’m planning to start with neem oil ans spinosad early on. neem oil is supposed to kill the larvae and spinosad is to prevent thrips which were major this year

All the roses i removed due to thrips infestation

My mary rose before the beetles

Some of my peach roses before the destruction

Ceresmer, I'm not sure @ neem oil killing the JB's larvae; the larvae are the white comma shaped grubs under ground.