The adult, however, is quite a vegetable garden pest and this year has become a flower pest because of the populations.
The adult beetle is fairly small, less than a quarter-inch long and shaped sort of like a tiny teardrop. It’s yellowish-green and has 12 prominent black spots on the wing covers. They really are fairly easy to identify.
Normally, they are a real pest on any vegetables in the cucurbit family. This includes cucumbers, pumpkins, squash and so forth.
They are vectors of disease (bacterial wilt) and feed on tender tissue such as flowers and emerging seedlings, as well as on the rinds and skins of fruits.
This has been a very good year for proliferation of this beetle, as it appears we are seeing the humongous third generation foraging in gardens.
I first noticed them on my tomatoes, feeding in the cracked tissue or in any open spots on the fruits. Then as I looked around further in the flower garden, I really couldn’t believe the amount of beetles and the damage they were causing.
As they feed on flowers, they leave ragged holes that eventually turn black around the edges and make the flower look atrocious. They pretty much ruin the flower.
They are sneaky, too. They burrow down into the flower bud or deep in the folds of a double flower and easily hide.
I found them on chrysanthemums, dahlias, portulaca, roses, melampodium, salvia, coneflower and several other flowers in my garden.
Take a look around your garden and find the yellow flowers. They have a tendency to go for the yellow flowers. A colleague of mine, Curtis Young, in Van Wert County, found them frolicking happily on flowers of goldenrod.
Normally I don’t use a lot of pesticides in my garden, but this is one that I attempt to control. I hit my cucumbers and squash early in the season in an attempt to prevent them from feeding on these blooms.
Midseason, I go after them for feeding on the skins and rinds. I am not going to worry about them on my tomatoes, as I am just about finished picking these. I can just cut out the damaged area.
I sprayed last weekend to knock the populations down in my flower beds. They overwinter as adults, and the adults can lay up to 500 eggs in the spring. Spraying right now will hopefully knock potential spring populations out.
You can use any insecticide that is labeled for beetles to be used on flowers.
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