Fantastic Solution for Flower Beetle Problems!

Abraham Darby

I was outside working today when Mark asked me to come look at something and tell him whether he should rescue the critters or not. (He has learned that many insects are welcome in my garden.) Imagine my surprise when I looked into a white plastic 5-gallon container and saw about 50 dead or dying flower beetles (see earlier post) floating in 3 or 4 inches of water!  I remembered that when I was reading about them, most articles said they were attracted to pale colored flowers, and I had noticed that  seemed to be true. They were ignoring Louis Philippe, for instance, which is red. I think they saw that white bucket, thought it was the biggest white flower in the world, crawled in , and conveniently drowned!  I plan to test my theory by locating several of them throughout my rose garden until this year’s infestation is over. It beats the heck out of walking around and plucking them one by one to drown them in a butter container full of soapy water. Not that that’s hard, but it does take some time. How nice it would be to wake up each morning and find that the beetles had been thoughtful enough to commit suicide during the night!  Will let you know if it continues to work, but I am optimistic. I mean, how likely is it that the drowning beetles would have yelled out warnings to their friends to stay away from the big white flowers? I’m thinkin’ this might be the best answer, ever!

More Blue In The Garden

Abraham Darby Rose With Blue Bench

(Click to Zoom)

Roses in central Florida usually bloom all year long, throughout the fall and even the winter.  Abraham Darby is full of buds right now, and I just like how it looks arching over one of my blue benches.

This is the time of year when I remember the PLUS side of gardening in a state that’s so hot in the summer.  Me, thinking:  “Oh, yeah.  That’s right!  We get to garden all winter!”   I will have to try to remember that when I’m trapped inside every year, during sweltering July and steaming August.

It’s still not feeling like fall, here, but it IS starting to cool off a tiny bit at night.  It was 94 degrees Saturday afternoon, though, so I’m going to keep reminding myself every day that I do get to garden all winter.  Since I can’t change the summer temps, I should just be grateful for that, and stop complaining.  A bit.  🙂