Have you discovered Japanese beetles in your yard? If so you are wondering how to get rid of Japanese Beetles! Here are safe ways to get rid of Japanese Beetles in the garden. These methods are mostly natural and do not include using harsh chemicals.
Japanese beetles are one of the worst pests to have around your garden. They can wreak a ton of havoc, and in no time at all the plants and leaves look terrible. Fortunately, there are some ways you can battle against these bugs and get rid of Japanese beetles in your garden – and in a safe manner too!
If you enjoy gardening but hate seeing your plants get destroyed by these pests, check out the 7 Safe Ways to Get Rid of Japanese Beetles in the Garden below.
7 Safe Ways to Get Rid of Japanese Beetles in the Garden
1. Handpicking: Removing the Japanese beetles you see manually may be time-consuming, but it’s one of the most effective ways to get them out of the garden. Fill a bucket with hot soapy water and hold it beneath the plants as you gently shake them. The bugs will fall into the water and drown by morning. The smell they give off in the bucket will help fend off other beetles.
2. Baby Powder: Using baby powder is a great deterrent for smaller gardens or just a selection of plants. Sprinkle the leaves with the powder, just enough for a dusting. This will alter the taste and smell of the plants, leaving them undesirable to the beetles. Make sure you sprinkle on more baby powder after each rain.
3. Clean Up: Japanese beetles are attracted to an area by rotting wood or diseased plants. Before it’s time for them to start coming around, be sure to clean up your yard, particularly the area around your garden.
4. Garlic: The scent of garlic is unappealing to many garden pests, and Japanese beetles are no exception. You can use garlic one of two ways. First, plant garlic as an outer border for your garden to keep the bugs away. Secondly, make a spray using garlic powder and baby oil. Spritz the leaves with it every few days to keep the beetles from munching on your plants.
5. Milky Spores: Milky spore is an organic repellent for Japanese beetles. It infects the grubs before they reach the beetle stage. When they die, they release even more milky spores into the ground, killing more grubs. This method can take a year or two to fully be effective, but it can work well for 10-15 years once implemented.
6. Nematodes: Nematodes work similar to the milky spores in that they kill grubs after entering their body. When used in combination with milky spores, nematodes can greatly reduce and control the Japanese beetle population around your plants.
7. Plan your Planting: There are some plants that Japanese beetles tend to gravitate to way more than others. If you have a huge pest problem, it may be best to stay away from their favorites. Japanese beetles like apple, birch, rose, crape myrtle, pin oak, cherry, and plum. Opt for plants least favored by the beetles, such as ash, redbud, magnolia, hemlock, dogwood, and boxwood.
Do you know of another safe way to get rid of Japanese beetles? Let us know in the comments!
More Ways to Get Rid of Garden Pests:
7 Natural Ways to Repel Rabbits from your Garden
Using Ladybugs to Naturally Eliminate Aphids
Martha says
What do you put in these ‘bait bags’ that have been mentioned above? thanks
Kwame Ocansey says
I have been gardening all my 77 years starting with my grandmother and then my mom. If I ever QUIT this wonderful vocation, it will be because I give up on fighting these EVIL suckers. You think of any strategy, I have used it before. Nothing comes close to hand picking and either smashing them or drowning them. I usually pluck up to 300 a night, hoping for less catch the next night. Similar to mankind’s effort to find cure for cancer, it astounds and saddens me to think that we have no single solution to an EVIL beetle that metes out so much havoc and damage to thousands of farmers/gardeners like me.
Roy Cothran says
cedar oil mixed with water and sprayed on your plants is a good deterrent for Japanese beetles and other insects. if you have cedar wood available you can put some small pieces in boiling water and then let it stand for 24 – 36 hours and make a spray from the water. baby powder sprinkled on the plant leaves also helps.
Mel says
I place the bait on a poll and suspend it over our pond about three feet above the water. I do not put the bags under the bait choosing to let the beetle fall into the pond. Within about 24 hours fish, frogs, turtle are churning the water under the traps. Beetle have less than a second before they become fish food. I put two or three of these traps out every year and look forward to the satisfaction of revenge.
Rolande says
Did I hear an evil cackle? LOL!
Fae says
We seem to get them in our neighborhood we live in southern
Indiana it’s second week of June and they are back we’re trying neem oil last year we hand picked them that was a lot of work is there anything that can be put around plants and trees to got up and out of the branches to keep them away
Lost in Evansville ind
Mel says
I have had some luck using pine shavings from the farm store. It’s often used for horse beeding. It also works as a mulch that is free of poison ivy.
catherine says
I also live in Southern Indiana.
My first encounter with, Japanese was three years ago.
They KILLED both of my Beautiful weeping cherry trees.
This year it’s the Grapes and Knock out roses.
The leaves look like, screen. Nothing I do WORKS !.!
I grew up on a farm, Ky. No. Japanese beetles.
MADNESS ! !
Tree Maiden says
Last year I discovered a swarm of them on my Virginia Creeper…so I dragged out my industrial strength wet / dry vacuum and filled it about a 3rd of the way with warm sudsy water and stirred it up so it was sudsy on the top too. Then I went up and down my fence sucking them up into the vac and let them soak overnight––Poured them out and did
it again until they were gone…. Interestingly, I noticed a huge swath of spider webs that extended along the base of the fence…perhaps they too were waiting for the little fat
bugs to drop into their webs. I didn’t disturb them but I don’t think they liked the noise of the vacuum. I’ve also heard that chickens really love them so good luck with that!
I think the trick is to be aggressive––be on the lookout, get to it early when you first see them, and keep at it from the very first siting until they die or move on.
Rolande says
I read that the sooner you catch and drown without crushing them, chances are the scouts won’t send reinforcements…
Connie says
Just remember when using bate bags to put them away from garden or trees you want left alone. The bait will draw them in from all directions. Catch them before they do damage.
Donna says
I use the yellow trap bought at Menards. The bags are so small so I attach a thick garbage bag and catch millions of them. Hang from fence or the tree. And I put a 5 gallon bucket with water under the bag to catch even more. Change the bag when it is too heavy For them hatching and only around for six weeks or so it’s like fighting a war. But the more I kill the better.
Ike says
Hi,oh I’m so Sorry! I do know how you feel! I hate those ###! I live in Wisconsin also,& have sprayed,picked them off,etc.etc it breaks your heart! All the time & money you put into your gardens & flowers. Is Milk Spore something you can purchase in local Home Depot, Fleet Farms?? Good Luck to you!!