Controlling Japanese Beetles
Lets get to the source of the Japanese beetle. Grubs are the first form a beetle takes and is spent underground, there is a natural disease that will kill off the Japanese beetle before they come out of the soil. This disease is the Milky Spore disease and it is a bacterial disease the will kill off these Japanese beetle grubs before they make their way out of the ground to your plants. Use of these bacteria is through a powder or sprayable liquid on your lawn to get down into the soil to where the grubs are thriving. Check out your local gardening store for more information on the name brands sold near such as Japidemic and Milky Spore.

Posted Thursday, April 6, 2006

If you have the time or the ability, you can stock your woods and your garden with different types of birds. Crows, catbirds, blackbirds, starlings, kingbirds, bobwhites, sparrows and robins will eat these Japanese beetle grubs before they turn into vicious hungry beetles that can destroy your garden. You can lure birds to your lawn and garden by feeding them seed all winter long, and then weaning them at the first break of spring so that they will attack the grub population in your lawn.

You can always try to pick off Japanese beetles from your plants as you find them, but this is very tedious. You can incorporate this task with a beetle bag. Placing Japanese beetle bags throughout your garden lures and traps them inside and then you just dispose of the entire trap when it is full. Keep four or more traps throughout your lawn because if you have only one trap, all you are going to do is attract more beetles and you will become overwhelmed, where four or five traps will trap the beetles no matter which way they try to get in your garden and lawn.

There are many types of dust, for example, seven dust, that you can sprinkle all over your plants to keep the beetle from eating away at your leaves. One drawback is that you do have to reapply this dust, or whatever type of gardening dust that you choose every time it rains in order to keep the beetle at bay.