LOL! Filix I feel your pain!

Here's my list:

Melampodium

Lime

They never bothered my onions, so maybe alliums (flowering onions) wouldn't be to their taste either. You might want to take a look at Google's list of Japanese Beetle Traps.

MM

Don't take the roses - they'll just attract the pests to everything else. They don't seem to bother much in my garden - cone flowers, balloon flowers, yarrow, echinacea, butterfly bushes, hydrangea, lupus, rudbeckia. But they've destroyed my lovely fairy rose. Pretty as it is, I'm going to replace it with something the beetles won't flock to.

That's what I was kinda thinking. I don't like sevin. I have a butterfly garden, don't want to kill them,or any other native bug. Thanks.filix

I have caught and killed literally 7 quart size mayo jars full this year. They are really bad this year. They really like my burning bush and Kousa dogwood I know that.

Sorry to hear about your burning bush and dogwood. Did killing 7 quarts of them make a dent? Hope so. filix

I've heard that they don't like garlic & in years past I've placed fresh garlic cloves amongst my plants. it helped a somewhat. BUT, my best suggestion is early prevention. I rarely see a dozen of them in a year for the past 3 years that I've spread grub killer, about once or twice a season. From what I understand (& I'm not an expert by ANY stretch of the imagination) grubs are the larvae of japanese beetles. I just know this has worked for me since I've started using it & I live in the middle of the woods on 13+ acres with 3 acres of yard. I buy whatever has the huge grub picture on the bag at Walmart. If you choose the right bag, you can get one that takes care of several pesky bugs & ants all in one shot. I think it costs about $8-$9 a bag.

Dumb question - can you put grub killer around plants in the fall or does it only go on the grass. I read somewhere that the grubs eat grass roots during the winter, then later they emerge as whatever - japanese beetles in my case!... and then eat my flowers.

I have often wondered if they lay their eggs where they eat - e.g. mostly my hibiscus plants - so could I put grub killer around those? Thanks

Carrie

JB's love my butterfly bush, one of their favorites. I thought too, that I would try putting the grub killer around where they eat, as I have learned at another place on the forum that when disturbed, males fly off, and females fall to the ground. (nice trivia questions to use!) So maybe treating the area around my new knock out rose area might do the trick. Only thing with the grub killer is that it also kills earthworms, but I think I will experiment around their favorite bushes!

Well, I have one cheapo-depot rose bush that rarely saw a bloom this season because of them...it grew, but no blooms. They dessicated (sp?) it. BUT...on the flip side...they were after little else, which made application of Sevin to their mass orgies a quick one. I sprayed just that bush, and my dahlias...but the one Rose bush was where they were most. It was a disgusting display.

I'd like to think that I got a good lot of them, but I know I'll still be popping those miserable white curly grubs come spring. Yuk.

I know what you mean by "popping those miserable white curly grubs" - I squirted myself in the eye last year - ewww now I turn my head and hold out my hand away from myself - ewwww

I must have collected (no exaggeration) at least 300 JBs a day for a really long time. I am definitely thinking about putting grub killer down around three hibiscus plants and see if that makes a difference.

mmqchdygg - I know what you mean by having one area that they seem to congregate to but it was so disheartening to start seeing them on everything - agastache, hibiscus, malva, rudbeckias - I mean, they were really going at it this year - so I never sprayed anything.

Carrie

Oh, YUUUUUUUUUUUKKKKKKKKKK!!! Here, put these on:

Carrie & mmg: I used to smash those guys(grubs) with my digger. Then I learned what they were a few years ago and made myself pop away! EKKK!!!!!!! But I told myself that I was likely preventing 100 more beetles from eventually invading! Nice comeback mmg! LOL

LOL - hey, good idea mmqchdygg... Running out to buy them right now to match my work boots, muddy shorts, clay stained shirt... etc. etc. That oughta look reeeeal nice... LOL

Carrie

Well, no outfit is complete without the proper accessories, dontcha-know...

Thankfully I don't experience the #'s of JB's where I am, although I googled for a photo, and they do look familiar. I came across several sites that said putting out the baited traps seems to attract more beetles to you then to merit the number trapped and killed. And the extra beetles do more devastation to gardens on their journey to the traps. One site indicated that to remove the bugs by hand would reduce the number of new visitors by half (only 1/2?) compared to leaving all the beetles on the plant.
Too bad the grub killers harms the earthworms, that method sounds pretty good.
Just a question, are all the white grubs under lawn the grubs of the japanese beetle or do some belong to something else? One year I needed to clear a fairly new sodded area for a bed (we didn't plan that well) and I could practically peel the sod back like a rug, and I would judge that there had to be 8-10 white grubs just in a square foot area alone. I had no idea what they would grow into, so I gathered and flushed down the toilet (seemed to gross to squish). Although as kids one year we had our own 'fear factor' and had picked a baby's washtub full of tent caterpillars off of our ash tree and dared each other to 'walk' in the bucket (to make caterpillar wine?) and we did. Oh to be a kid again.
~k~

You can supposedly kill the Japanese Beetles grubs in your soil with a dish detergent and water solution. Problem with that is you must have everyone in the neighborhood do the same thing because they fly for long distances and come from all around you.

I have learned that if you put geraniums in with your plants they are attracted to the geraniums and will eat them and die. I haven’t tried this yet.

This year I am hand picking my grapes and roses and stuffing in a 13 oz jar with detergent and water at the bottom. I’m on my 3rd jar.

Also one more thing. Don’t smash them. It releases something like pheromones and attracts even more of them.

"Just a question, are all the white grubs under lawn the grubs of the japanese beetle or do some belong to something else? "

There are any number of beetles that spend their larval stage as grubs underground so it is very possible that at least some of those you saw were not JBs.