I’m getting tired of seeing this when I check on my flowers:
Usually by mid-August the Japanese beetles finish mating and destroying all my plants and have moved on to laying eggs in the turf so their grubs can hatch, eat the grass roots and then overwinter and come back to terrorize me and everyone else next summer.
I’m hoping that this week is the last I’ll see of these pests until next year. I’ve been plucking them off my flowers and dropping them into a bucket of warm, soapy water to help lessen the population, but this year it feels like I’m barely making a dent. And a few times I’ve narrowly escaped grabbing a bumblebee by accident!
I’m hoping my ‘Sweet Sixteen’ cosmos plants continue to hang in there so I can enjoy the blooms once the beetles finally leave. The plants are 4 feet tall and bushy and full of buds, but every time a bud opens the beetles devour the petals.
I was happy to find one blossom unscathed:
