Here in the Berkshires, we celebrate the Fourth of July with a great home town parade, barbecue's, lawn games, theatre, museums, concerts, intense gardening...and the birth of the Japanese Beetles, who will plague us for about two months.
Just when my roses are blooming and full of leaves, these little shiny monsters start coming out of the grass, and feeding. They eat the leaves, the buds - anything. I pick them off by hand, and drop them into a small margarine tub of soapy water. They are the only thing I enjoy KILLING! I pray for a natural predator, but guinea hens are not a real possibility for me. My dog and cat would be their natural predators...
Here's a few photo's of the things blooming in my garden - and the before and after of a rose, who was then attacked by a beetle. This was his last few seconds of life - hope he enjoyed it.
Before major damage by the Japanese Beetle....
There he/she is - destroying this bud.
On a more prosaic note - here's a bud from a beautiful lily, soon to become the flower you see below it.
I love these white echinacea's. The complexity of the center is like popArt.
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