My brother-in-law grows lovely calla lilies. He graciously shared some of the tubers with me one spring, and I was excited to plant them in my partial shade garden. They grew beautifully and the speckled foliage was quite fetching. I was an instant fan and decided I would like to add a few more to my gardens.
What I didn’t know is that the plants are like crack cocaine to Japanese Beetles. When they arrived in late June by the bazillions, it didn’t take long for my love affair with calla lilies to come to a screeching halt. Holy mackerel, I’ve never seen so many beetles crammed into a flower at one time.
Every afternoon I would tap the flowers over a soapy bucket and 40 or 50 of the little monsters would fall out of each one. Just thinking about it makes me shudder. While it was a great way to capture beetles, I was pretty sure I was just drawing more of them to my yard so eventually I just cut off all the flowers.
My “cannot grow” list is getting longer and longer, but I’m still holding out hope that one day the beetle populations will subside, and I can grow beautiful flowers like calla lilies without feeling like I’m part of a horror flick.