Beetles on Roses

Rose Beetles

Meta Description:  Want to know about rose beetles? Read this article to find out what are rose beetles, how to identify rose beetles, and how to control them?

Walking in your rose garden in the scorching heat of summer to see whether your roses are doing well or not and what you see is your leaves being eaten by some tiny metallic green insects. What are these insects? These are rose beetles, more precisely known as Japanese rose beetles. Though there are many other species of beetles that attack rose, Japanese rose beetles are the main attacker.

As the name indicates, these beetles originally belong to Japan and were introduced into America accidentally through shipments from Japan. These beetles have very few natural predators in the US; therefore, they are increasing very rapidly and damaging the rose plants severely.

Identification of Japanese Rose Beetles:

Having shiny metallic green body and copper-colored wings, Japanese rose beetles are half an inch in length and love to eat the leaves. They move very slowly so you can pick them up very easily. Under sunshine, their beautiful hard metallic green body gives a very lovely look just like jewels but don’t admire their beauty because, in the end, they are one of the most dangerous enemies of your beautiful roses. They remain mostly active during high summer months, usually from June to August, while their larvae are active in fall and spring also. Their adults feed on the leaves and plant parts while larvae eat grass and roots from below the soil, and within days, they can ruin your whole garden. They are the major pest of roses in Central, Northeastern, and the midwestern US. They remain as grubs in soil from fall to winter and emerge as beetles in summer. Once the adults come out, they start eating the leaves until the last leaf becomes their meal.

Mode of Damage:

They damage the plants by eating their leaves primarily. They eat leaves in such a specific way that their eating pattern can be identified very easily. They eat the leaves around the veins giving them a lace-type appearance. In other words, they skeletonize the leaves. In the heavy attack, the plant can not recover its damaged leaves, so they turn brown, fall off, and the plant becomes dead.

Management of Japanese Rose Beetle:

Follow the following points to prevent, control, and manage the attack of Japanese rose beetles:

As they are very slow mover, you can pick them up easily. After picking, put them in a bucket containing soap water and then later dispose them off. Do this practice in the morning as the beetles are less active in the morning.

Mix a spoon of dish soap into a water bucket and fill the sprayer with this water. Spray this water onto the beetles.

The use of beetle traps is also useful, especially when you have a large and wide lawn. Place the traps far away from the plants. The traps will attract the beetles towards them, and that’s it.

The use of neem oil is one of the safest and organic methods to control rose beetles. Spray the neem oil on the plants and the affected parts.

In the end, the use of insecticides is also a viable option. Spray insecticides containing pyrethrins as active ingredients as these insecticides are safe to use on roses.