JapaneseBeetles: Our Y2K bug Melrose Plantation Style

What's all this hoopla I've heard about a bug invading the world and damaging computers?  At Melrose, I've had a war on since the end of June.  Every day I take no prisoners.  The enemy gets executed on the spot.  No discussion and no thinking about it.  My enemy is the enemy of all roses and rose fanciers.  And it is deceptively attractive in a shiny brown and green shell which I thought were pretty until I learned what they eat.  They eat leaves and blooms of roses, grapes, strawberries; just about any and everything that doesn't have warm blood coursing through its stems is food for these hungry herbaceous henchmen.  The enemy of which I'm speaking is the Japanese Beetle.

I'm from Memphis and Robert is from Houston.  Neither one of us had ever seen a Japanese Beetle before moving to the Eastern Seaboard.  Back home we fought black spot and mildew in order to have pretty roses.  I'd read from time to time articles in publications like Southern Living about Japanese Beetles and their ability to destroy more than 300 species of plants.  That really didn't mean anything to me.  Until now.

For a long time I think Robert thought I was praying over each rose bush.  I would spend five or ten minutes with my head down in very concentrated focus on the bush.  At last he saw what I was doing...smishing these darned pests with my fingers.  Someone I recently met here said that he'd had good luck picking them off his bushes and putting them in a jar of kerosene.  I would too if I had the time to do all the bushes we have.  I've also read about people who pay children a penny a piece for each beetle.  Maybe with inflation make that a nickel now, but alas we don't have any lucky little wage earners around here to do the job.  Besides think of the liability problems if a child got pricked by a rose bush today!  That's more scary than the beetles.

So, last year I convinced Robert to spend about a hundred dollars on Milky Spore, a natural product that is said to not harm beneficial insects.  That was enough to treat the rose garden and the cottage garden with a heavy talc powder like substance you apply every few feet.  It is a natural chemical that prevents Japanese Beetle grubs from developing.  They say to treat forty acres but then they say not to graze livestock where you treat.  Having sheep, I didn't treat forty acres but only the gardens.  Besides, the cost to treat forty acres would have had at least one comma in the price tag.  We waited anxiously to enjoy our summer roses instead of the beetles, but the beetles are beating me to them again.  I haven't seen any decrease in the Japanese beetle population in the rose or cottage gardens, only a decrease in our checking account for buying the stuff.  Someone said give it three years so I've not counted it out yet but it didn't win any accolades from me this first year.

Then I've tried those beetle bags that lure these over sexed botanic buzzards to a plastic bag.  It works with dural floral and sex lures that attract the insects to what they must think is a pick-up joint in our garden.  When they arrive for a rendezvous, bingo they fall helplessly into this hanging yellow and green plastic trap and bag.  Apparently our winds must shift a lot because I seem to attract beetles from everywhere to the gardens.  The bags do fill up but I wonder if I'm drawing them in from the fields and would be better off without using the bags.  I've now hung one bag near our Italian honey bees to let them fight it out with the Japanese beetles to wag my own version of WW3. The fella who gave us the bee hive said that our bees would rule the insect kingdom for about two miles from their hive.  I'm rooting for the Italians in this match up.

Since our sheep, dog, bees and Robert and I all live here among our roses, we're always on the look out for ways to organically treat typical problems.  Here's one I found in the July/August "Footprints" newsletter from the Virginia Federation of Garden Clubs, of which I am a member.  I'm going to try this recipe and would like to hear from you if you have any success with it or if you have other concoctions.  We've got to attack with all our weapons to beat these darned Japanese Beetles.  Despite my attitude towards these leaf and bloom assassins, I can rip only so many heads off in one day.

"Alcohol Bug Spray"
(Farmer's Almanac)
2 parts rubbing alcohol
5 parts water
1 Tablespoon liquid soap

Combine all ingredients and spray to deter white flies, aphids and destructive beetles.

Update:  I just used this mixture tonight on our grape vines since I was too cautious to try them on our prize roses.  Even when I sprayed the bugs directly it didn't seem to phase these shiny metallic tanks.  And, I was upset when I saw I sprayed a large preying mantis with the mix.  Maybe it is just a deterrent like insect repellent.  I hope so.

Let me hear from you if you're having any luck with other methods.

Catherine

July 24, 1998

Post Script:  Not that I'm political, but I just heard that Kenneth Star's investigation has already cost the taxpayers of this country around $50,000,000!  That's your and my money folks to find out if a president is lying.  Gee whiz guys, even Honest Abe would tell anybody what they wanted to hear and vastly change from person to person (call it lying if you want).

Anyway, that got me to thinking about what good to the country, and perhaps to the world, could have been done with fifty million dollars, and probably more on the horizon!  Personally, I'd rather have had this investigation money go to something that actually means a diddle in our lives.  How about the Ken Star Japanese Beetle cure, or funding so rose businesses like ours can afford to treat our farm with enough Milky Spore or other natural preventatives?  The American Rose Society wants to have a rose bush for every home.  That's nice, this investigation is not.  Frankly, controlling the sex lives of these darned beetles bothers me more than finding out about the sex life of even one president.

August 5, 1998

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