I think they should be easing up soon. Mine are usually gone by mid-August. Thankfully I don't get a whole lot of them here. But even so they do chew the heck out of my roses. I haven't had an unblemished bloom in weeks. Even the dark red ones looked chewed up and usually they don't go for those as much.

July is the peak month almost everywhere. But emergence takes the form of a bell curve, so it diminishes gradually, and in heavy JB years it lasts longer than in lighter years. You could have another month or six weeks of them to deal with.

What is a Japanese Beetle? I saw only three this year.
I really think our drought was a big factor

JB 's decreasing every day this area. I can pick them off, actually have buds again. Nothing like 2 wks ago when they blew thru here THICK. Applied milky spore again, maybe improvement next year...(sigh...) removing ugly ugly leaves so the garden is not so depressing. We are dry here but no matter, I got yours from Ii z5. Also a ton of bees and that was nice!

I don't think it's drought. We have tons of rain. I'm not sure where they are. :( looks like I only saw 5 on my rose of Sharon

It is drought in late summer and fall of 2012 or maybe earlier that affects the JB crop for 2013. Population in my neighborhood was crushed by years of severe drought 3-5 years ago and hasn't recovered.

v1rtu0s1ty......The drought has to occur the previous summer, it causes a high mortality rate in the grubs so the number of adults hatching out this summer will be small. "tons of rain" this summer means the grubs will find lots of lush grass roots to eat & the number of JB adults will pick up again next year.

Got it! Glad to learn something new. :)

Thanks!

Even Shakespeare 2000 is fair game.

I occasionally saw 1 or 2 a day during July, but haven't really seen any in August until today when I saw one.

Looking at the sexual orgy going on in Johnny's pic, I decided I must have celibate JBs (thank goodness). If I find any, it is ONE in a rose here and ONE in a rose way over there--never together. Pays to have an "abstinence only" garden, wouldn't you say? LOL

Kate

have any of you tried bagging your roses with fine netting or making cages surrounded with netting? I had to do that for my fuchsias to keep hummingbirds from spreading deadly mites and it worked.

I hope they are gone soon---they are eating my roses too! I am going to order some nematodes to see if that will work.

Kate--notice the females keep on eating--a romantic dinner with roses on the table.

Kitty--yes, netting would work, but a rose garden is supposed to be an ornamental garden. To me it makes more sense just to remove all the flower buds during the bad part of JB season.