I'm on a first name basis with my praying mantis.. mantises.. mantids.. whatever. Any mantis or tree frog I run into while I'm out and about typically ends up going home with me. Now if I can just have a chat with the bull snakes and convince them to just eat the mice and not the frogs I'll be set.
Japanese beetle invasion - threat to bonsai ?
- Thread starter davetree
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I'm on a first name basis with my praying mantis.. mantises.. mantids.. whatever. Any mantis or tree frog I run into while I'm out and about typically ends up going home with me. Now if I can just have a chat with the bull snakes and convince them to just eat the mice and not the frogs I'll be set.
DannyBonsai
Sapling
bull snakes seem to have the world in two categories: stuff they can eat (or try to) and stuff they need to run from/chew on. I had a captive one who used to methodicaly chomp down on my wrist every time i looked away. But mantises work great, and if you have a large yard, and there is a good sized border between your yard and the nearest woods, they and their young will stay around indeffinately.
treebeard55
Chumono
They do like the rose family, but clearly don't limit themselves to just the Rosaceae!
I've never seen them on any conifers here. I also use imidacloprid as a preventive, and it definitely seems to work. Not just for beetles: the other day I found a few chewed needles on my JBP -- and a dead nymph-stage grasshopper on the deck below!
I've never seen them on any conifers here. I also use imidacloprid as a preventive, and it definitely seems to work. Not just for beetles: the other day I found a few chewed needles on my JBP -- and a dead nymph-stage grasshopper on the deck below!
rockm
Spuds Moyogi
Mantids won't go for Japanese beetles much, if at all. Not much at all will eat them, that's why they're such pests.
That's it, I'm breaking up with my mantids!
That just illustrates how nasty those beetles are if a predator as opportunistic as a praying mantis won't eat them.
AlainK
Imperial Masterpiece
Call Harry's coackroch friends : they'll pull out their guns and send those slant-eyed pests to hell, ksh, ksh, ka-boom, bang, arrgh !
No, I was joking, let's be civilised : put them in a coach and send them back to where they belong. what? the Pacific Ocean? Darn it, should have been called the pissific ocean or sumpthng, grweewhwrr, ahem, rhhhwwwhh... pow, bang,bang, zzzzzzz-bong
Yeah, good idea, and they'll all drown in the ocean, hrhrhrhr...
Instead of a wall, let's make and ocean between US and the others.
And razor-wire on the beach.
And missiles in the sky.
And tea-party slogans in the air
Oh my, that was a bad trip
Fortunately, the nightmare is over, the Usonians I've met are open-minded, tolerant people. friendly people who don't have a sign "trespassers will be shot", oye veh, what kind of a culture is that?...
No, I was joking, let's be civilised : put them in a coach and send them back to where they belong. what? the Pacific Ocean? Darn it, should have been called the pissific ocean or sumpthng, grweewhwrr, ahem, rhhhwwwhh... pow, bang,bang, zzzzzzz-bong
Yeah, good idea, and they'll all drown in the ocean, hrhrhrhr
...Instead of a wall, let's make and ocean between US and the others.
And razor-wire on the beach.
And missiles in the sky.
And tea-party slogans in the air
Oh my, that was a bad trip
Fortunately, the nightmare is over, the Usonians I've met are open-minded, tolerant people. friendly people who don't have a sign "trespassers will be shot", oye veh, what kind of a culture is that?...
