A few years ago, we started to notice that the overgrown old fashioned rose bush we have didn’t seem to have many blooms. What it did have instead, was a lot of little greenish, iridescent beetles. It would seem these are Japanese beetles, and can really do a number on your rose buds. Or many other types of plants as well.
We decided to forego they pesticide route. And you can also spray a mixture of oil and soap that seems to deter them, but we decided to try a trap instead.
The trap is baited with some sort of thing that smells like fruit which attracts the bugs. They then fall into a bag and can’t find their way out. Seems very simple. And it worked great. We ended up with a bag full of bugs. We’d dump it out and collect more. It didn’t totally stop them from going after the roses and a few other plants around, but it did slow them down quite a bit, so we seemed to have them under control.
Although I do have to say that a bag full of dead bugs can smell really awful. Just to let you know.
And while it did seem to control them for a while, it didn’t get rid of them, and they had been slowly coming back. Now they seem to be back in force, and once again, the rose bush doesn’t have many flowers.
The problem is, I’m not sure where we put the trap. I know it’s around somewhere, but I haven’t found it yet. So I may have to resort to something else.
I’ve seen others posting of ways to deal with these nasty little critters. Everything from spraying pesticide, to the oil and soap mixture to putting nets over their plants to keep them away. There seem to be a lot of different methods, but I’m not sure how well the work. Trapping them works, but only in the short term.
As I have learned, they will be back.