I hate JBs so much! They always attacked my Julia Child first, the most hard working child, then moved to “fun in the sun“, the very happy kid. I had to pluck a lot of flowers and buds.

I'm just starting to see them too.

Todays gathering🤢:

Me, too. Time to get on it.

Nicotine kills them, so if you smoke, blow the smoke on them. You can also mix ashes with water and spray them with it. Not that I advocate smoking, but it has one useful purpose.

Oh no! I knew it would be any day now. I sprayed my Austins with neem oil, hoping that will help. I put tulle over my first-year cherry tree, they'll devour that thing in a matter of hours with no netting.

Yep I just saw my first JBs Saturday myself. Sigh. At least the roses are resting after their spring flush so hopefully they can weather the next 6 weeks or so. I was just out doing the summer fertilizing this week with hopes that in 6-8 weeks to build for a fall flush the JBs will be mostly done. Usually by the time the kids go back to school the JBs have all gone too.

I agree that July is lily and daylily month and JBs don't eat either of those. Any roses that survive the scourge are just bonus

Cynthia

Horrid JBs!!

Markay - I love your Peach Perfection and I hope it and RF are safe from the JBs. Blech...they look so gross in your container. LOL It really shows the size of them...I always thought they were twice as big as that. No matter their size though...they're horrible.

Haven't seen anything in my Maryland garden yet. With all the cicadas last year, I'm not sure there's enough dirt to support other grubs.

I knocked two off a hybrid tea yesterday and stepped on them. Do not see any new this morning yet.

intwilight, I never see many in the morning and start everyday with an unfounded optimism that I’m ”getting ahead of them,” but JBs are like surly teenagers who don’t show themselves until mid-day. Lol… it’s okay because it gives me a couple hours to enjoy the roses before the beetles show up to wreck them.

Bliss

Lafter

Alfred Sisley

Solero

Deelish (this seems to be a JB favorite. They love fragrant roses).

I saw your message and bounced out the door to check. Still none today. Like sawflies, JB are new to me. I mostly grew herbs before we moved to this house.

Markay - Your Solero is utterly gorgeous!!! I'm in love with it!!

Thanks Rosecanadian. It is susceptible to thrips, but the JBs don’t favor. Mine is grafted from palatine and I’ve had issues with suckering so the bush isn’t the nicest shape, but it is a heavy bloomer and I love the color (which is very consistent). It is in some shade and still churns out a lot of blooms. So far the blackspot resistance has been good.

They're in full force here...

Steven

Awww...I'm sorry Steven.

Markay - I'll look at that one if they have it this year. :) :)

Yeah so many JB here! I listened to the Rose Chat podcast and the expert said you have to hand-pick them three times a day for it to be effective. I don't have time for that! I work at 6am! It was discouraging. Although also discouraging is walking by without doing anything, so I might knock them into soapy water this afternoon as therapy.

Ha! It’s very difficult to get them mid-day when they are active and flying all around!

I may break down and get some bag traps and hang them on the opposite side of the yard.

So far (a week from first sighting) they're not too bad here! (Knock on wood) I'm hoping this year is better than the last few years have been. Other years hand picking has been impossible... just too many to even make a difference. I harvested my rhubarb the other day so they can't get that. That seems to be one of their first targets, even before the roses. Next on their list is the robin hood roses. I've considered removing those just because of the JBs. Those were some of my very first roses.. I bought them before I knew there were better ones, lol.

Ashley Smith, I hope your luck holds. i may just go ahead and disbud peach perfection. It’s about to get hot and she doesn’t look great in summer heat anyway. She’s gorgeous in the fall though!

I put down some milky spore decades ago. Not sure if it did anything, but I haven't seen a single JB this year.

I put milky spore down 2 years ago. Not sure of it will work for my zone though, but I'm sure hoping.

We've had them for about 3 weeks in Kansas. Absolutely horrid. My two, 4-year Lady of Shalott shrubs are like crack for them, and what's worse, LOS is a bloom machine. I collect a gallon-bag's worth each day JUST from those two shrubs. I used to just snip off their buds in previous years, but I just can't keep up this year. I am going to try kaolin clay (Surround WP) this year for some respite and see how that works. They tend to not bother Earth Angel or Charlene as much, but those roses are also not blooming at the rate of LOS, and I have organza bags around some new buds. I have 8 new roses on the property that I am disbudding for plant health, and the JBs have also not bothered them much.

I applied milky spore religiously last year (spring, summer, fall) but did not this year. Unsure it has helped since we live in a subdivision, but we likely need to continue applying for a few more years before it takes effect (if any).

Ugh. Bon courage, everyone.

Samuella - ugh...that's just terrible! Ugh!

Woah! That’s a lot of beetles Markay. 🤢

Poor roses indeed.

I pulled my first one off a lovely PCDM yesterday up in Zone 5. This is my first summer w roses and while I’ve never seen JBs previously I have battled sawflies on my dogwoods and they are super gross amd destructive. In fact i have a calender alert coming uo to go out and pick off the baby larvae before they start devouring

do the same sawflies bother roses or a diff kind?

They are here in NW Illinois, at least in my garden. They just LOVE my pink climbing rose, whose names escapes me. I sprayed the JBs with some cheap liquid soap mixed with water and it kills them instantly. You do have to keep spraying the soapy mixture, but it does work. Dawn soap works well too.

I have them, but only a tiny fraction of what I have had in past years. Last year's drought most likely helped, as well as dry weeks in Mid-to-Late-June this year.

Last year I had pole beans and the JBs loved them. i might plant some beans next year just to draw them off the roses!

well this isn’t going well…

Right there with ya, @Markay MD-Zone 7A (8A on new map)...

My LOS shrubs are in terrible shape. What were two gorgeous, lush shrubs just 2 months ago look like they should now be sent to the refuse pile! I've also never seen so much blackspot on either of those shrubs...

(I use drip irrigation), and we've barely had a drop of rain the last few weeks. I am wondering if/how the beetles might be contributing to the shrubs' increase in BS.

Thankfully, the organza bags around the slower-blooming shrubs are giving me some hope. I was able to rescue some Charlene blooms last week, below:

I haven't had a chance to spray the kaolin clay, but I hope to when I have moment!

Poor Jude.. they love him😭

I bought some white geraniums to plant around my garden. Not expecting that to help tho. Also ordered peppermint oil to spray.

I'm very thankful for the roses they don't seem to like. Bolero, Distant Drums, Kiss me Kate, Abe (that may redeem him for me), Rose Marie, Teasing Georgia and Florentina are some of mine they've been leaving alone.

The consolation is that I had roses right up til Christmas last year and the beetles don’t make it past September. Fall roses are donething special. i wonder if the beetle stress makes roses more susceptible to blackspot because their does appear to be a correlation.

I actually got three perfect blooms off my Darcey Bussell! We had no rain for six weeks (unusual for us but the storms just kept veering off to the side) and I wonder if that reduced the JB population. It finally rained 4 inches in 24 hours and now I'm sitting pretty. Here's hoping the JB don't rebound too.

JBs have a hard time burrowing to lay eggs when the ground is hard from drought, and when it is dry they have a somewhat hard time surfacing.

Well...as fast as they came, they seem to have declined substantially in numbers in the last week. They are definitely still around, but they are fewer, despite my garden being a buffet of other beetle delights (dahlias, pole beans, etc.). I can't tell if it's because of the pyrethrin I sprayed a few weeks ago (first time ever, and haven't reapplied since), but like @mark_roeder 4B NE Iowa said, it can be because we'd barely gotten a drop of rain for a month (we got got 3/4 in yesterday, so I will have to compare). Either way, huzzah!

@Markay MD-Zone 7A (8A on new map) I completely agree that there seems to be a correlation between beetle stress and BS. Between both issues this summer being extreme for me, I am having a very hard time enjoying gardening this month.

I recentec spotted some if these guys and learned that they feed JBs to their larvae!

Still have them here in NW Illinois. I knocked 8 of them - yes, I counted ! LOL - into a jar filled with cheap Ajax liquid soap & water. I keep the jar in the sun to toast those suckers!

I spoke to soon…we got 2 inches of rain after a month long dry spell, and they are back with a vengeance. Ugh! @Markay MD-Zone 7A (8A on new map) was right!

We have had precipitation, so I have more of the buggars, but less than previous years when they ate every rose flower.

Just as I thought the JB activity was winding down, today I caught this huge beetle. ps these are past 3 days catch

Now Japanese beetles are gone, and cucumber beetles are showing. This little guy is eating the Fun in the Sun buds. Certainly not nearly as bad as JBs