These half-inch, green colored beetles are especially fond of roses and grape vines, as well as the leafy parts of your garden plants. If they haven’t already arrived, they will shortly, as well as those equally inevitable Japanese beetle traps that spring up in neighborhoods everywhere.
There is a yard and garden commentary in our local weekly newspaper, The Mount Olive Messenger, Mount Olive, NC. This week, Dr. A.J. Bullard’s commentary addressed ways of dealing with the Japanese beetle. He is not an organic gardener as such, but from time to time does offer solutions that organic gardeners can use.
I have mentioned companion plants before and along those lines, he mentions potted geraniums. Potted so that you can move them to where you need to have your plants protected. But, not just any geranium, white geraniums seem to be the color Japanese beetles favor.
The essential oil of geraniums have been used to ward off mosquitoes and head lice, as well as taken to improve circulation and other medicinal applications. The point is, geraniums do have insecticidal properties, but what is not so well publicized is the attraction that white geraniums specifically, seem to have for Japanese beetles. And, all it takes is one bite of the geranium and its instant death for our little green pests.
By accident, Dr. Bullard noticed that it was the color white, more than anything else, that seemed to attract Japanese beetles. He had 75 five-gallon buckets of various colors scattered throughout his orchard. He had set them out to augment watering his plants during hot, dry spells. What he noticed was that the white buckets would fill with dead Japanese beetles, while the other colored buckets…red, green, and orange, were empty of beetles!
So, if you’re looking for a simple solution to the annual invasion of Japanese beetles, you may want to put out some white buckets of water. You don’t necessarily want to put the buckets IN your garden, you don’t want to attract these beetles into your garden, but rather a short distance outside of your garden to keep them away. Read the rest of this entry »
Do not Waste Your Retirement Funds but Take the Reverse Mortgage