Johntheplantman's stories, musings, and gardening.

I had three calls today to let me know that the Japanese beetles had made their appearance. The last message was a text from my good friend Randolph who wanted to know how to get the pesky beetles that were eating up his crape myrtles.

Japanese beetles in the Southern U.S can wreak havoc on plants such as roses and Crape myrtles. They don’t stay around long but they eat a lot

I started to explain the process to him but then I decided to get my friend Johntheplantman to write an article with pictures. Here’s how you do it.

Ace Hardware sold me a sprayer for around ten dollars. That’s reasonable and it serves my purposes. Here it is:

An inexpensive pump sprayer. Always clean and rinse the sprayer before using it on plants. Be careful

The most effectivechemical I have found for these beetles is Liquid Sevin, which is an easy to spray version of the old fashioned Sevin dust that has been used by farmers and gardeners for many years. Liquid Sevin is one of the safest insecticides on the market, but be sure to wear eye and face protection when applying it.

Liquid Sevin is a relatively safe insecticide and it works on the beetles. Be sure to wear safety glasses and face protection.

Most, but not all, sprayers have an adjustable nozzle similar to the one shown in the picture below. The expensive sprayers have a brass nozzle while some of the other sprayers have strange nozzles that won’t work. Here’s my nozzle:

nozzle on cheap sprayer. tighten for wide spray, loosen for distance

The nozzle may be twisted to set a spray pattern. Here is a medium spray pattern

A medium spray pattern

If you tighten the nozzle, the spray pattern becomes finer and wider.

Tighten the nozzle to increase the fan

And if you loosen the nozzle the spray pattern will become more concentrated and will shoot for a greater distance. I used this spray pattern for a good picture but you may with to experiment and you will find that if it is set “just so,” it will look like a high-powered water gun and shoot 20 feet or more.

Loosen the nozzle and experiment until you get a long, narrow stream. This will reach way up on the crape myrtle or other tall plants.

So mix the Liquid Sevin according to directions and set your sprayer. (Disclaimer: If You are against the use of this method of control, you may wish to get a Japanese beetle trap. If either of these procedures hurt your sensitivities in any way, I’m so sorry.)

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