Steve: So far, knock wood, no beetles here.

The soap is not going to do you any residual good. It will kill the beetles
you hit while you are spraying it, that's all. Mostly same for the oils,
but I second Diana's caution about those. Are you of the age to remember
the sunburns produced on humans tanning with baby oil? Same idea.

I cannot recommend a specific chemical, but if you Google on "pesticide
labels" and your specific pest, you will find some. Chances are, most
(maybe none) will not be specifically labelled for orchids. No guarantee,
but _usually_ those labelled for "ornamentals" will be safe. Do a small
test run on a couple of your least favorite plants and watch them for a few
days before spraying overall.

Look around your premises for non-orchid "host" plants, too.

Until you solve the problem, bringing them inside sounds like your best bet.
Good luck, Kenni


"Steve Weaver" wrote in message
ps.com...
Does anyone growing summer flowering cattleyas have to contend with
Japanese Beetles? If so--and especially if you've found effective ways
of discouraging them from turning your flowers into a salad bar--I'd
like to hear from you. I have a couple of cattleya species (leopoldii
and bicolor) and a few of the hybrids derived from them that flower in
the summer. I've tried everything from "hiding" the flowering plants
behind other orchids and houseplants (all of which spend the summers
outdoors here in the Midwest where I live), to coating them with a good
amount of Safer's insecticidal soap, but nothing seems to work. Just
last week I had a guttata hybrid that I got to enjoy the flowers of for
a whole two days before they--like some horrible magic act--disappeared
because of the attentions of the beetles. Luckily another group of
budds on the same plant are still maturing, and weren't of any interest
to the beetles. Now I'm praying that the budds don't mature for another
week or two in the hopes that the beetles will have all died off by
then. Any advice (other than getting rid of the summer flowering
cattleyas to avoid the problem!) would be very much appreciated.