It seems that Japanese Beetles are taking over our neighborhood. Wikipedia lists their favorite plants and we have four of them in our front yard alone.
Here's a close-up of our weeping cherry tree. The beetles are "skeletonizing" the leaves at a rather impressive pace. We had them bad last year too, but I think they're even worse this year.
Justin and Vance spent some time last night shaking branches and combing the beetles off into a bucket full of water.
(Vaughn and I watched through the front windows and took pictures because Mommy is a typical girl when it comes to bugs. Especially these. You can't shoo them away. If they land on you you have to literally take them off of you. One has gotten stuck in my hair and it was a horrible experience. I nearly hyperventilated just downloading the pictures from last night. I'm not proud of this at all.)
A neighbor from a couple streets over stopped and said they have them bad too and that there's some kind of Grub-ex that can be put down into the soil during the spring to kill the larvae of the beetles. We'll be looking into that next spring and in the meantime I guess we'll be hanging out with them.
Bastards.
The beetles. Not you. Have a great Friday!
True story about using a grub preventer. BUT, you will still get some and for those I spray the tree/shrub with Sevin. I buy the already mixed stuff because it's easier and that way your tree/shrub is saved from being completely eaten. You got em bad, girl!!!
ReplyDeleteWe'll give that a try, but don't you have to respray after it rains? I'm guessing you would. At this point, it's worth it because I can't even go to get the mail without being attacked. Thanks for the advice!
ReplyDeleteYou can only spray every seven days according to the bottle. Try to spray when you know it will be dry for a while.
ReplyDeleteSorry if you get this comment twice. It didn't seem to post it the first time...
they also like roses and last year they arrived on the 4th of July - and then they are there for the duration of the nice weather. It really stinks because I work pretty hard on my garden to only have about a month to enjoy it.
ReplyDeletebtw, they don't bite, so you should be able to just grab them and slam them on the ground and make them pop :)