Insanity or Death Wish?

Ok......so my DH went out and saw this early one morning on our deck..........

yes it is a bottle of sevin and a baby praying mantis......

DOVEBYDESIGN,
I am guessing the latter, and did you grant his wish??

NO! ....it was so cute.........I had the sevin out for the Japanese Beetles on my Sandcherry bush and my geraniums. :)

I think it is illegal to purposely kill a preying mantis.

I agree bolino!!!!!

I think that's generally known. Funny picture!

Yes, I believe it is illegal here to kill a praying mantis....they are endangered? or some such thing and here they are rare to see, I think they also kill many insects. I usually do not kill insects at all, it is just the Japanese Beetles have no preditors here. I have been doing some research into beneficial nemotodes to kill them. Apparantly there is something you can put on your lawn to kill them that takes 3 applications for 2 years and then it kills just the larvea (sp?) or grubs? of Japanese Beetles in your lawn. But of course there is always the neighbours......

Dove, I did beneficial nematodes too, and I'd like to try Milky Spore. But, as you say, if the neighbors aren't also treating, it doesn't do nearly as much good. When I was a kid my town treated with Milky Spore, and we didn't have JBs for 15 years. Amazing.

Wow........now what is Milky Spore??????

I wish that we could just do that for the whole country.....everyone at once and then they would be gone for a while......

Ha ha! You haven't seen the price on Milky Spore, I see. :) Yeah, that would be wonderful... I can dream, anyway.

ok...what is milky spore......

ummm...I googled it and now I know......this is the thing that I was thinking of spreading on my lawn, the feed store here had just told me about it and I thought it was nemotodes not a bacteria. So now I know. It may cost a bit but I think of the long term benefits and it seems worth it. I just wish my neighbours would think so too!

I got this link from Snopes, interesting but not quite informative enough for me. I wouldnt kill them anyway they eat so many bugs and look so cool. I think I have about 6 of them running around my gardens right now.

I have to say, those pictures had me lauging so hard, along with that caption. My kids were wondering what was so funny.

http://www.snopes.com/critters/wild/mantis2.htm

My DH wanted me to call it the "Ultimate spirit of competition".......tehehehehehehe.

That would be a great title dove!
There is a lot of information on Milky Spore out there. This one had some good descriptive information: http://homeharvest.com/milkspore.html

I think we are going to do the milky spore. I just need to know if I am not doing 3 applications this year (only 2) then 3 next will I have to do 1 more the following year or a whole other year of 3 applications? It is not clear on the sites.

.....susan dove
dovebydesign