Yardwork and Japanese Beetles!

It is no secret to anyone who knows me that I am not particularly fond of my neighbor diagonally behind me. I would love to spin a tale about some major wrong-doing or some other unjust thing, but the fact is, the man annoys me. Period. That's all. Funny thing is, I've never even had a conversation with him. He just irks me.

The Husband has had a conversation with this neighbor. Once. It was about a year ago. In said conversation, the neighbor was a complete braggart and an ass not the most cordial guy. We (The Husband and I) have thoroughly enjoyed making fun of the neighbor.

Our renters had a fence up and one of the other neighbors heard a rumor we took it down because the jerk-neighbor "made us," as it was on his property. None of that happens to be true, and we took the fence down because we don't like fences. Because the neighbor was such a jerk about things, we decided to plant some trees in the corner of our yard. We began with three emerald green arborvitae, much like these:

We would like, eventually, to have them run the entire side of the property line as in the photo above, but for now, there is one in the corner, and one on each side. They look great.

In addition to these three guys, we also purchased a maple tree. We had originally planned on planting that on in the front, but The Husband decided it should go in the back as well. The trees we bought were not small, so there was a LOT of digging to do. The three arborvitae trees stand nearly 6ft tall each, and the maple tree...well...I have no idea how tall it is, but since you dig the hole twice the diameter of the root ball, just know the hole we dug was 60" in diameter!

This morning, we were cleaning up the dirt from "the big dig" and I noticed bugs swarming one of the arborvitae. At first, I thought they were bees. The Boy, who was helping out, freaked out. He stepped on a yellow-jacket hive once and was stung 6 times. He's not a huge fan of bees! Upon closer inspection, we learned they were Japanese beetles...and they were ALL OVER the trees! UGH!

I ran to the local home improvement store for help, and the man recommended this:

I thought it was kind of gross and did not believe they would work, so I bought some Sevin powder as well!

Apparently, I was wrong! That little Bag-A-Bug works wonders! I cannot believe it. Within hours of setting it up, there were no longer Japanese beetles on the trees; they were all in the bag instead. In fact, while The Husband was putting it all together, the beetles came to HIM! Apparently, the little lure thingy is a sex pheromone and attracts the beetles like mad. I don't really know...I do know that it works!

I will admit I was a bit hesitant once I read they were not too effective and only captured so many beetles because it attracts them from all over the neighborhood, but I really don't see that happening. I am excited, though, because we have a red plum out front and the beetles (while not too bad) got it last year. I am hoping the bag we have out back will attract all the beetles and they won't even notice my tree out front!