When the detailed annals of twenty-first century gardening history are collected and indelibly recorded in cyberspace, today will be noted as the day that ProfessorRoush grudgingly conceded his unwilling submission to the Japanese Beetle horde. I have lost my solo battle here on the Kansas Flint Hills, completely and irrevocably, crushed by the sheer prolific mass of beetle fertility. How many beetles do you count on the single ‘Hanza’ flower above? There are at least 14 engaged there in disgusting Caligulan debauchery by my count.
I wave the white flag at last, an unworthy descendent of the heroes at Thermopylae, Masada, and the Alamo. Despite twice-daily rounds of the battlefield under the searing summer sun, hand-picking and crushing the chitinous slobs as they fornicate in their own frass, and occasional mass desperate dispersals of chemical weapons, I can no longer pretend to be winning and must face defeat. I know the war was lost long ago in the eastern and southern United States, but the battlefront continues its westward move. The closely-cropped beetle mass at the top is only the most visible today. There are also smaller numbers of beetles on all the nearby blossoms, foreground and background. At night, I dream now only of the crunch of the beetle masses as they feast on the roses, of their laughter during coitus in the bright Kansas sun.
I blame my defeat on many factors, not the least of which is lack of a national sense of emergency. Forget the concerns of ecology and species diversity, Japanese Beetles hold no value to the world. The extinction of these lazy disgusting creatures would make no measurable impact on the world’s ecology. They have no enterprise, no natural predators, no redeeming virtues to promote their preservation, seemingly existing for the sole purpose of consumption, defecation, and procreation. Where are, I ask, the chemists to create a poison aimed directly at the demise of this sole species? Where are the enterprising engineers to envision a fleet of affordable micro-drones capable of capturing beetles to transport and release in the fires of hell? Where are the biologists to create infertile clouds of male beetles to slow their spread, or to genetically manipulate a lethal virus specific to Japanese Beetles? Where is the evolution of the insectivore who views beetles and beetle frass as delicacies?

Beetles on ‘Martin Frobisher’
Today’s pyrethrins and insecticidal soaps are worse than worthless on adult beetles. Yesterday, I drenched these beetle clumps directly in modern insecticidal death and an hour later, they were still devouring white ‘Blanc Double de Coubert’ with abandon. I dream, at times, of finding and deploying an old bottle of DDT. Would it be worth a Silent Spring or three to rid the earth of Japanese Beetles? I hear in my mind the Beetle Voldemort laughing at poor Professor Dumbledore: “You’ve lost, old man.”
Future minstrels will not sing ballads to the losing effort of ProfessorRoush, but, upon reflection, I take solace that I am a true descendent of those at Masada and the Alamo. After all, despite their valiant and principled stands, they lost too, surrounded by enemies too numerous to count, without aid from the greater world. If there is hope for the gardening world, it is in Old Garden Roses—resistant to Rose Rosette disease and blooming too early to be ravished by Japanese Beetles—and in daylilies. I leave you with this ‘Sonic Analogue’ daylily (above), seemingly immune at present to the beetle appetites. I may have laid down my weapons, but I keep hope that beetle predators will evolve faster than beetle defenses and these daylilies will remain to brighten the rest of my summer days.
I was lamenting the damage to my David Austin roses, yellow roses, and Crepe Myrtles just this weekend …
Dirk T, I’m so sorry and I share your pain.
Beneficial nematodes will destroy the grubs and thereby lower the adult population. Problem is, all the neighbors will also have to use this treatment. Good luck with that. My method was to get a butterfly net and begin collecting the adults as chicken feed. The chickens love them. Unfortunately, as soon as the beetles realized that they might save me money on chicken feed, they flew the coop (pardon the word play) and abandoned my yard. Durn!
Boy, that was sure a picture to spoil my morning. I too smash the little s.o.bs with great crunching pleasure and grab handfuls to dump in the bucket of death (soapy water). The neighbors keep the kids inside during beetle season so they won’t hear me cursing. You use such polite language to describe their activities. I refer to it as f- ing and s-ing.
Well said. They have not made it to south Florida yet but instead I curse the flower chafers who also chew flowers and moon me in defiance.
What a great rant! At least you will have entertained any reader who alights on this page even if you lose your hopeless battle against these ghastly creatures.
I’m glad you enjoyed it…myself, not so much the muse of the writing so much as the writing.
I thought what we have here in the Central Valley in California are Japanese beetles, not so sure now. But what we have are VERY romantic bugs and go after white roses and ruin them!
I had problems with aphids on 3 ninebarks for at least 3 years. No amount of blasting with the hose or insecticidal soap did the trick. Last fall I cut all 3 down to within a few inches of the ground and have not seen any more aphids (and Diablo has not appeared either ). I still have a few aphids on my Blue Muffin ( I think ) Viburnum and have been pruning as required to get rid of them.
I also have the very fragrant Hansa roses and they are gorgeous now that the deer can’t reach them.
I live in Virginia and somehow have escaped having these in my yard for the past 30 years, until last year. So far they only care about my roses, so I go out 2 or 3 times a day to pull them off. I question whether I should keep the roses if this continues next year. The problem is, I’ve read they also like Japanese maples and crepe myrtles, which so far have managed to escape their chewing. I’d rather sacrifice the roses, which I can reach, than the trees, which would be impossible to get to. I keep wondering, after 30 years, why now?
Why now, why me, why a disgusting, adulterous, loathsome, beetle? The life of a gardener is hard, isn’t it?
I removed my 9 David Austin and Griffin Buck roses 5 years ago because of these creatures – they disgust me. Last year, at Reiman Gardens in Ames, Iowa, the potentially glorious rose gardens were decimated and ugly. My Mom mentioned that the other day when I asked if she wanted to go to Reiman Gardens for a day trip – her answer was “yes, but let’s skip the rose gardens, it’s too depressing”.
Roses are the only plant they’ve attacked in my garden, but they stripped the top 2 feet of my sister’s climbing hydrangea and the top branches of my neighbor’s Linden tree annually.
All that said, I planted a Pink Drift rose this year, a low-to-the-ground plant that I hope the Japanese Beetles will overlook. Wish me luck.
Even if the beetles don’t get the Pink Drift, something else will. Maybe it’s better in Iowa, but I couldn’t keep any of the drift roses going here in Kansas, nor could anyone else.
Not a terrible year for them here, but they are ALWAYS on the Hansa — I get one flush and it’s toast. But what a fragrance, however fleeting. My sympathies. —MW
They’re so bad here in Ohio that they are literally stripping my apple trees bare.
There is no stopping them.
I have resorted to chemicals, which have little effect on them.
Those photos are simply ghastly. I have some JB’s in my yard, but not like you do. I plant hollyhocks as a trap crop, which seems to keep them off my climbing rose. This year, however, they are attacking the New England aster. It’s never too late to decimate the grub population – there is a lot of advice on how to do that via google. Good luck!
Oddly, my hollyhock’s haven’t been touched. And the beetles seem to prefer certain roses. It isn’t the number of petals, for they seem to be attracted to white, double, Blanc Double de Coubert and single Fru Dagmar Hastrup in equal measure. Maybe fragrance and maybe color; the brighter reds seem to be left alone, while the white, pink, and some magentas are ravished.
I’m hoping they leave my grapevines alone this year.
As a teenager, I was sad to see Japanese beetles not only destroy my mother’s roses but also turn the leaves of a lovely Linden tree into brown lace. I read about Milky Spore Disease, spread it on the ground around the affected areas, and like magic the vile beetles disappeared in the following years. They have never returned and I don’t want to say how very many years it has been since then.
The spores spread from the area treated through the soil and reportedly are of no danger to any living being except Japanese Beetle grubs. I hope you will consider seeking this appropriate revenge.
I will try Milky Spore, thank you. It’s a big area, but surely something will work.
I to have not so silently succumbed to the defeat of these hell born pests of mass destruction. As they rapidly destroy my roses, grapes and my patients, I continually spray soapy water on them that is immediately washed away by all the rain. It’s a tireless effort and I am determined to find a mixture to deter them while not harming my rose garden, that I have pampered for years. This year they seem worse than the cicadas were here in South Central Pennsylvania. Today, I will try a mint infused spray as they have not touched my “field” of ground cover.
We feel your pain… We use 7 but they still march on. Wiped out my pussywillow tree, my crape myrtles and more. The once lush leaves and blooms now ugly. After the 17 year cicadas that have trimmed all of our trees leaving behind dead branches, the beetles came out and finished off the rest.
Great article James!
These detestable congregating creatures are a horrible nightmare. Yet, as I read along and as I now think about it . . . Is there a greater message that we are needing to let sink deep into our cerebral mind?
These creatures were designed by a holy and yes, good God and we may be missing something really big here.
1 John 1:3 in the Bible states that all things were made by our heavenly Creator, and without Him was not anything made that was made. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Genesis 1:1
As we battle this earthly pestilence, we find ourselves on the losing side. This seems crazy . . . with all the great minds out there we still are losing to their armored invasions. We shake our chemical spray bottles in the air with disgust but, miss seeing the message these small evil scholars would say if they could talk. They would say, “Can’t you see . . . it is not you who controls the universe and all that is in it! We know His attributes are invisible, namely, His external power and divine nature but . . . don’t be futile in your own thinking . . . don’t be a fool! Look . . . look at what has been made. You’ll have no excuse if you choose to look the other way and say that there is no God or creator. Don’t let your heart darken this truth. Oh come, let us worship and bow down; let us kneel before the LORD, our Maker! Psalms 95:6 For one day an angel will be heard saying in a loud voice Revelation 14:7, “Fear God and give Him glory, because the hour of His judgment has come, and worship Him who made heaven and earth, the sea and the springs of water. ” And can I dare say the Japanese Beetle too?
John 3:16-18 has the greatest message of love and forgiveness for us all by Jesus Himself . . . (because we ALL fall short Romans 3:23) “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, (or destroy it with Japanese Beetles) but in order that the world might be saved through Him. Whoever believes in Him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.
God says, “In a favorable time I listened to you, and in a day of salvation I helped you.” Behold, now is the favorable time; behold now is the day of salvation. 2 Corinthians 6:1&2
Even though it seems that God hates us by sending these gross Japense Beetles to riddle all our beautiful landscapes and trees, I believe they are here to help point the way. Jesus is the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Him. John 14:6
Sincerely, A fellow Plant Lover and Garden Center Owner
While I take no issue with your conclusion, I’m not quite sure whether Japanese Beetles came from above or below.
I didn’t have any of these vile creatures until a few years ago, when they discovered my only rose bush.
I had been picking them off by hand, but couldn’t keep up.
I read online that they love 4 O’clocks, but they are poisonous to them.
I planted one next to the rose bush this year. They are enjoying it and leaving the rose alone. I haven’t seen another one lately! I’m crossing my fingers!
The philosophy that we must live in harmony with all creatures simply doesn’t work for me. No. I will twist the heads off any ticks that try to get on me, swat mosquitos, flies, deer flies and black flies. I will squish or send to a drowning death all Japanese beetles I can find in my yard. Not for me the”live and let live” credo! If it’s going to bite me, suck my blood and maybe transmit a fatal or awful disease, it’s dead. Harsh as that may be it’s how it must be. I understand your pain at having to retreat in the face of overwhelming odds. Just wait till next year! In the meantime, put the Bt that is specific to Japanese beetle grubs on your lawn. It does help for a few years. Good luck!
That’s the spirit! Worthy of Don Quixote at his best!
Here in the Chicago suburbs, the horde are completely ignoring my roses in favor of stripping my eggplant, corn and sunflowers. Every day I go out, hand pluck 10 or 12, crush them underfoot, and hope that’s done it. But every day I see more. Last year, my first year gardening, I didn’t see a single scarab. But your photos show me what I may have to look forward to. This is most distressing!
Yes, I fought successfully for several years, but this year the sheer numbers overwhelmed me.