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Japanese beetles of course come from grubs in our soil. I've used milky spore disease and if I can get my neighbors to use it as was well I get better results.
Which is these have you tried and how much success did you have?
Japanese beetles of course come from grubs in our soil. I've used milky spore disease and if I can get my neighbors to use it as was well I get better results.
Which is these have you tried and how much success did you have?
OMG and LOL!!! Everything they talk about is aimed at SLUGS, not GRUBS! How will any of those things (most of which I wouldn't try for dlugs, by the way) control a grub that lives its whole larval life under the soil surface?
What a terrible site to make a mistake like that. If you have it bookmarked, delete that bookmark now!
I have just read a book titled "The Truth About Garden Concoctions". The forward is written by Michael (god of botany and horticulture) Dirr. That was all the endorsement I needed. It's cheap on Amazon -- have a look.
Tina I could not believe they were a serious place after I started reading that. For several of their recommendations they must have mixed up what grubs and slugs are and that seems like such a beginners mistake. The amount of ignorance I have been seeing among the "green" and organic converts lately has begun to boggle my mind. I've been advocating and growing organically for most of my adult life and its beginning to feel like I am swimming in a swamp of gullible, stupid and willfully dumb people. Since when do you have to be so dumbed down to try and do things with mother nature.
NoKudzu back to your question. Milky spore is only good for two kinds of grubs, Japanese Beetle and Junebug or June Beetle which looks like a bigger version of the Japanese Beetle. If no one else in your immediate area is using Milky Spore it will take quite some time for the spore to be spread far enough to do some noticeable good for those two grub types. There are many bugs that have larvae (grubs) that are not effected. Do you have a grub problem or a Japanese Beetle problem? Diatomaceous earth is a very hit and miss "cure" since it has to be there as the grub emerges and timing can easily miss the mark.
I found the best combination of cutting down numbers of the Japanese Beetles was Milky Spore, spraying insecticidal soap (home made works as well as the organic stuff you can buy) and collecting them. Milky spore takes several years to spread out from the initial application and can be absent in spots since coverage is uneven. I collect as many as I can from lower branches and plants and drop them in soapy water in a large mouthed jar. Let them sit for a half hour and then dump them out. They are dead. I've gotten good at getting the jar underneath the leaf and dumping them in when they try to escape. Any that are out of reach are then sprayed once with insecticidal soap. A light spritz is enough to cause them to drop off the leaf within 15 minutes. The last two chores can easily done by young garden helpers without any risks to their health.
Aside from the diatomaceous earth there are some organic products out there that are supposed to be able to control the grubs of more than just Japanese beetles like Safer's Grub Killer but I haven't gone that route, yet. A neighbor down the road from me had a very bad infestation 2 or 3 years ago and went with something spread like fertilizer on her lawn from one of the big companies, like Scott or Bayer. I know she had less of a problem the following year but I am not sure how long it has lasted or if there were other problems.
I have to admit I didn't read the whole article. I only saw they were advocating a whole bunch of things I have never heard of except Milky Spore to eliminate grubs. That is why I was wondering if anybody had used these other methods. I used to pay my kids a penny for every japanese Beetle they "picked" off my roses or any plant. We dropped them in gasoline.
I agree about so many errors in media today. Just a minute ago on my facebook a site called Natural Garden posted a picture of "a lovely vase of roses" when they were clearly peonies. A bunch of folks caught it and I think it is an inexcusable mistake for a site championing gardening. Now I'll be really embarrassed if there is a new "peonie looking rose".
I looked at them and thought what lovely peonies and then read what you had written. Then I went back and looked more carefully. The only thing that gives me pause is the shape of the green leaf pieces in the background and a little of the ruffling.
Paeonia ‘Sarah Bernhardt’ looks a lot like your mystery flower but then there are double roses that are equally full looking.... like the David Austin hybrid types. Google pictures for Rosa Madame Ernest Calvat and for Rosa Heritage to see what I mean. I'm still pretty sure those in your picture are peonies but wouldn't bet the house on it!
Tina I could not believe they were a serious place after I started reading that. For several of their recommendations they must have mixed up what grubs and slugs are and that seems like such a beginners mistake. The amount of ignorance I have been seeing among the "green" and organic converts lately has begun to boggle my mind. I've been advocating and growing organically for most of my adult life and its beginning to feel like I am swimming in a swamp of gullible, stupid and willfully dumb people. Since when do you have to be so dumbed down to try and do things with mother nature.
NoKudzu back to your question. Milky spore is only good for two kinds of grubs, Japanese Beetle and Junebug or June Beetle which looks like a bigger version of the Japanese Beetle. If no one else in your immediate area is using Milky Spore it will take quite some time for the spore to be spread far enough to do some noticeable good for those two grub types. There are many bugs that have larvae (grubs) that are not effected. Do you have a grub problem or a Japanese Beetle problem? Diatomaceous earth is a very hit and miss "cure" since it has to be there as the grub emerges and timing can easily miss the mark.
I found the best combination of cutting down numbers of the Japanese Beetles was Milky Spore, spraying insecticidal soap (home made works as well as the organic stuff you can buy) and collecting them. Milky spore takes several years to spread out from the initial application and can be absent in spots since coverage is uneven. I collect as many as I can from lower branches and plants and drop them in soapy water in a large mouthed jar. Let them sit for a half hour and then dump them out. They are dead. I've gotten good at getting the jar underneath the leaf and dumping them in when they try to escape. Any that are out of reach are then sprayed once with insecticidal soap. A light spritz is enough to cause them to drop off the leaf within 15 minutes. The last two chores can easily done by young garden helpers without any risks to their health.
Aside from the diatomaceous earth there are some organic products out there that are supposed to be able to control the grubs of more than just Japanese beetles like Safer's Grub Killer but I haven't gone that route, yet. A neighbor down the road from me had a very bad infestation 2 or 3 years ago and went with something spread like fertilizer on her lawn from one of the big companies, like Scott or Bayer. I know she had less of a problem the following year but I am not sure how long it has lasted or if there were other problems.
Don't get me started on Milky Spore. Waste of time, money and it provides false hope at best. Cut down on beetles? No, not unless everyone for miles around treats with it. I learned my lesson, even had the stuff professionally applied for three years running. We had no reduction in JBs. We had no reduction in grubs either, because I have to disagree, Em -- MS is not good for June bug (masked chafer) grubs.
As for the beetles themselves, contact spraying worked sometimes, but they continue to do damage as they die, and then new ones show up. Handpicking was the only thing that worked. I hated JB season. So far in KS, knock wood, I've only seen one JB, and that was two years ago on a neighbor's hydrangea.
The Bayer product is a two edged sword. That's Merit (imidacloprid), and it has been publicly linked to the pollinator problem and CCD. The verdict is still out, but there is growing evidence it is part of the overall problem. It works great, though. It's what we ended up using in Chicago, and it kills masked chafer grubs as well, and they were a huge part of our grub problem. We had to have them inspected under magnification by our NaturaLawn of America technician, to properly identify them, and boy, I was angry when I learned we had done all those MS treatments for nothing.
I agree about so many errors in media today. Just a minute ago on my facebook a site called Natural Garden posted a picture of "a lovely vase of roses" when they were clearly peonies. A bunch of folks caught it and I think it is an inexcusable mistake for a site championing gardening. Now I'll be really embarrassed if there is a new "peonie looking rose".
O. M. G. Just looking at the size of the blooms in propoortion to the stems is enough to know these are peonies. Em is so right about the most ignorant gardening advice on the internet is found on the "all natural" sites.
This is THE most balanced look at that subject -- absolutely wonderful read:
That book is on my wish list, so I haven't had the pleasure yet. It came very highly recommended so I am glad to see you recommend it, too.
Tina, as with plants, common names get us in trouble. The Masked Chafer isn't called June Bug around here, it's a May Beetle or a Chafer Beetle and you are right it does not get infected with the Milky Spore bacteria LOL The June Bug (aka Green June Beetle) looks much more like a king size Japanese Beetle with one of the biggest and ugliest grubs I have ever seen and I have seen plenty of disgusting grubs. It does get infected by the bacteria in Milky Spore. All of them are related and in the same scarab family.
I think soil type and warmth has a lot to do with how well Milky Spore can work. Timing is everything with the first application in order to catch the grubs before they go deeper to survive the winter. It probably is slightly more effective in the southern areas than northern.
NoKudzu I found this a bit belatedly but the last part really does a good job of explaining why Milky Spore can be an incomplete method aside from Tina's observation of the fact that everyone around you has to be using it to get quicker results.
No matter what I still find grubs all the time and they get whacked with the garden trowel or whatever else I have on hand. I don't bother to ID them they are all bad as far as I am concerned. The first Japanese Beetles have been out this past week. They found my brand new Canna and decimated on whole leaf before I spotted them. My first jar of dead bugs in soap water took care of that. I spritzed a few on my Gaura with insecticidal soap but they have left the Knockout alone.... I think the Bayer 3 in 1 did its job there. Ask me again in about 2 weeks.
Em, that's what we called a June bug in Chicago, the huge green one. In Kansas...I honestly can't say I have seen those. Masked chafer beetles are a nightmare here, as well as Chicago.
If you want to ID the grub, it's a pretty unpleasant process. You have to observe the pattern of the hairs on their butts (rasters). And you have to do it under magnification. It's kind of a pain in the...raster.
I agree, they're all bad. I'll take wasps, thanks very much. At least wasps are beneficial.
That's a terrific link on how Milky Spore spreads, and it points out something I have harped on for years. In addition to all the other reasons I've listed for not using it, here is the Catch-22. You have to have grubs in your soil before you apply it. Grubs can't move very far, so you need to have grubs pretty evenly dispersed throughout your lawn -- but how do you know that if they are underground?
I got to the end of the article and got a nice surprise. It was written by someone I know -- Raymond Cloyd, our Extension Entomologist at K-State. Wow, I never knew he had been at U of I.
Japanese beetles of course come from grubs in our soil. I've used milky spore disease and if I can get my neighbors to use it as was well I get better results.
Which is these have you tried and how much success did you have?
The best way I know is bring some Armadillos into your yard, of course they will dig holes in your grass, but they will kill the grubs. Which is better and I hate the stupid Japanese Beetles.
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