My garbage can still smells bad from last year when I filled it every day with grocery sacks of JBs. I always emptied the traps early in the morning so I could get cleaned up afterwards before going to work. A couple of times I used Clorox spray bleach on my hands to get rid of the smell. Ah. Good times. I do believe the plague is about done here. I see a few here and there, but no swarms. I'll be spreading more milky spore when the weather cools and we get some rain...if the weather cools and we get some rain. It is supposed to be washed into the soil fairly soon after spreading for best effect. There's no way I can water it in everywhere I need to spread it, so I have to wait for rain. Chuck

WIrosarian is correct and it's pretty much like asking what can I plant that the deer won't eat? The answer is, it doesn't matter much because it depends on what they feel like that evening and if they can reach it, it's fair game. Same with the beetles, which begins here with rose chafers, different in appearance to JB's but oh, so alike in appetite. RC's emerge same time as the first roses begin to bloom. Early or late, I don't know how they time it but they time it right. Yellow's are goners for sure, followed by white and pink roses. Fragrance simply draws them in like a magnet, all of which means my old garden roses get devoured. Reds and dark colors will get eaten sometimes too, poor Bayse's Purple and scarlet red Eddie's Jewel this year being prime examples of apparently delicious petals. After a month or so of the rose chafers, the JB's continue the assault, basically following the same preferences. My poor Polereis has not had an undamaged bloom all year. And some roses like Morden Sunrise have leaves that are entirely skeletonized. Yes, once they've found your garden, more beetles will come. They send out chemical signals to advertise the bounty they've discovered. But do you know which rose in my garden seems untouched by either evil beetle? Yup, the Double Knock Out that the previous owners had planted. Figures, doesn't it? And so far, neither bug is interested in my daylilies. Small wonder why the number of DL's I grow is fast approaching and ready to surpass my roses! At least diverging into other collections allows me to separate and mix the roses in between other plants. Sometimes that helps a few rose blooms to escape detection here and there. My worst garden for damage is the strip along side the garage (facing east and prime rose territory) where I planted a long bed of mixed yellow rose varieties and purple and blue tall bearded iris behind. This was planned and planted before I realized the rose chafers here in the village are just as bad as they were out in the country where I was surrounded by hundreds of acres of fallow fields (their prime breeding ground.) And it was before I knew I ALSO had Japanese beetles here to contend with. That bed will have to be dug and redone at some point because it's just too painful to see all the damage there in a row with nothing else to look on. Cheery, no? Still, I continue to tend my (fewer) roses and hope for the best. Maybe NEXT year, the beetle count will be lower and I'll see more blooms....hope (and gardening) springs eternal!

Don't you just love Harry's picture? Connie had mentioned we talk about JBs and roses because this is a rose form. This is very true. JBs are destroyers of many other plants besides roses. There are a few I keep around just to let them feast. Pussy Willows do come to mind right away. Linden trees, Crabapple trees are all plants that the JB will consider much more tasty. I've found that Neem Oil does help to dissuade JBs a good bit from the roses. It also helps with fungus disease such as black spot. I used it a lot last summer with fairly good results. Also, geraniums is a good distraction for JBs. I will often plant seed geraniums around my rose beds, or near them. The JBs enjoy them, but the plant sports a chemical that the JBs can't handle, giving them a belly ache and killing them. However, I don't suggest you go spend hundreds on seed geraniums but try them first. I've also put milky spore down. I've heard reports that it really doesn't work anymore, but I beg to differ. I still get JBs, but they aren't destroying my yard like they did in the past. Nor do I get visitors such as opposum and skunk like I did. Being out in the middle of farmer's fields, there's not a lot I can do against the JBs, but they don't like to go to far to lay their eggs and my lawn is a nice place to do that. Each year, you can see the swarming females preparing to lay their eggs in my lawn. At least the milky spore will stop those grubs; and with those grubs maybe millions more. The only other chemical besides the Neem Oil that has worked for me is Sevin. But Sevin is such a strong contact killer, it kills everything. I have a wildflower/English/American Country garden and it's full of birds, butterflies, bees and any assortment of wildlife. Husband likes to use it and I will tolerate that during the densest population of the JBs (only about once a year). I also told him to be sure to do only the rose bushes and keep it off the rest of the plants. Since I've put restrictions on it's use in my garden I've noticed more honey bees and other forms of wildlife more frequently. JBs are a pain in the posterior, but I'm still a rose gardener first.

I have the same problem. They are difficult to deal with. Placing them in a soapy water is often suggested, which is what I do every day, but it doesn't really make a difference. Maybe you are reducing their population a bit, but they will keep coming more and more until they die off. The best thing to do is to spray the lawn with milky spore or nematodes depending on where you live, but they can also be sheltering in your neighbor's garden. I'll be applying nematodes in a few weeks as the eggs hatch.