Beetles as garden pests (1 Viewer)

[Tero]

I was walking around the neighborhood and found something like this in a yard
http://www.rescue.com/Products/Japanese_Beetle_Trap.asp
It was full of hundreds of beetles.

My gardening is mostly grass, lots of, bushes, ground cover, trees. I never planted flower other than some hostas that were in the yard already.

Is this beetle problem really that serious, and can you avoid it by what plants you plant?

I treat my lawn two times a year for grubs, but that is the extent of my killing insects.

 

[paul mabbott]

I've never heard of 'Japanese beetle' but looking it up -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_beetle - it seems to be a chafer (vegetable-eating scarabaeid) which may be a garden pest in USA. As Wikipedia notes - it is not a problem in its native region so is perhaps just benefiting from lack of predators and parasites in US.

I think that the gardening industry will be exaggerating the damage done (for obvious reasons). In Europe we have chafers including the rose chafer which seems to resemble this one. They do damage roses and other plants, but not fatally. They can be controlled manually - which is what I would try to do first ....

I was walking around the neighborhood and found something like this in a yard
http://www.rescue.com/Products/Japanese_Beetle_Trap.asp
It was full of hundreds of beetles.

My gardening is mostly grass, lots of, bushes, ground cover, trees. I never planted flower other than some hostas that were in the yard already.

Is this beetle problem really that serious, and can you avoid it by what plants you plant?

I treat my lawn two times a year for grubs, but that is the extent of my killing insects.

 

[Tero]

Manually is the last thing the typical American will want to do. They prefer gasoline or electricity. But perhaps a gardener had to manually plant the plants.

My ad the bottom of the page seems to be
http://www.terminix.com/

Not exactly the type of interest this forum members have in insects.
But even they list only two beetles as pests
http://www.terminix.com/information...ion=category&pestCategory=Occasional Invaders