this bug friend or foe?

[GardenGnome]

[img]https://i1268.photobucket.com/albums/jj565/ericmgilson/2012-04-24_19-27-53_15.jpg[/img]
I think they were eating some alphids. I've seen them before about 40 or so on the tall grass.

[rainbowgardener]

Japanese beetles, very bad... They don't eat aphids, they eat your plants.

If you come out in the AM while it is still cool, you could shake that branch and the beetles will drop down. If you have a bowl of soapy water under them, you can catch and drown them.

They are what the white grubs in your lawn grow up to be.

I did notice that they love wild grape vine (or domesticated, but wild is what I have). All the time the grape vine was blooming, they stayed right there and didn't bother anything else in my garden so I quit worrying about them. Sometime in the summer they lay their eggs in the lawn and go away.

[GardenGnome]

K I do have a grape plant near by but I've only seen them on the grass in clusters.
Ill keepnan eye for them and if they give me trouble then ill soap them.

[rainbowgardener]

Possibly they are on the grass because just emerging. I doubt they will stay there long.

I drowned about 30 of them last year. They don't drown real easily-- swim around for a long time. You have to keep an eye on them so they can't climb out. I finally got tired of killing such beautiful sparkly creatures and decided as long as they were on the grape vine they were ok.

[GardenGnome]

Yeah they do look cool are they the same ones I've seen swimming in my kids pool?

[GardenGnome]

I don't like killing things or spraying chems. I do kill black widows tho. Or if I see it eatting my veggies.

[rainbowgardener]

I don't like killing things either, though I will when necessary, not with sprays though.

Use trap crops. When practical, crops which are highly favored by Japanese beetles can be used to draw the adults away from other crops. Trap crops include: borage, white geraniums, grape vines, evening primroses, and zinnias. The beetles can be collected or killed on the trap crops.
https://www.mobot.org/gardeninghelp/plantfinder/ipm.asp?code=67

Or you can just leave them on the trap crop. My experience with the wild grape vines was they really just stayed there and didn't bother my veggies. I didn't mind sacrificing the wild grape, because it's really just a weed.

I believe they actually prefer trees to veggies, though if there aren't trees that they like handy, they will certainly eat veggies.

[FaTRippz]

Where are they, ill squish them.