The Good and the Bad

I'm just back from a very hot and enjoyable week at the lake. I checked on my garden on Tuesday and watered pots because the weather was so unseasonably hot and dry and I didn't want anything to die of thirst. I looked through my perennial beds and everything seemed to be doing well. I arrived home from the lake yesterday afternoon and went into my gardens to see what needed to be done. To my dismay, Japanese Beetles have nearly eaten 4 of my new rose bushes! I picked off every one I could find and killed it and then started to look at plants close by. There were a few on neighboring plants, so I killed those as well. My first thought was to get out the spray, so I grabbed it from the basement and started to read the directions. The bottle said 'very highly toxic to bees'. Well, my garden is full of bees and other pollinators, so I decided not to spray. Now I'm looking for an organic alternative. In the mean time, I started to look at other plants to see if the infestation was anywhere else in my garden and my other plants, as of today are free of Japanese Beetles. While I am sad about my roses, I am very happy to find butterflies feeding on my pink Coneflower at the other end of my garden! Something good always comes with the bad and I'm so happy about the butterflies, that I can almost forget about the Japanese Beetles.