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.