Are you seeing the insects or a great deal of damage?
Do you know what kind of Viburnum you have?
In our area, there are multiple species of Viburnum that are resistant to this pest and the damage is minimal and needs no attention.
Here is our page on them: 
https://extension.umd.edu/resource/viburnum-leaf-beetle/
The best and least toxic control for them is to prune out their egg-nesting sites on the bush and throw them away in the trash once the leaves have fallen.
If you feel you need to spray you can use insecticidal soap,  horticultural oil or products containing spinosad.


Christine

Hi Christine  and thanks for the response.  I see damage and will pick the beetle off the Highbush cranberry's i’m trying to develop.  I also see them on my basil, coneflower and a few other herbaceous plantings.  I gave pyrethrum(last resort) a try a few nights ago and this may have had some effect.  The other viburnum's(leather leaf, Korean spice, Prague)) are untouched.  

You're welcome.

The only known host plants for this particular beetle is Viburnum species, so if beetles are found on other plants (the basil and coneflower you mentioned), they might be other insects. Otherwise, stray Viburnum Leaf Beetle larvae or adults on other plants probably aren't doing any damage, or visible damage is due to other culprits.

Miri

What i’m seeing is a brown beetle that looks like the VLB.  I’ll grab a photo and send it to you but i’ve only seen them at night.  Lots of beetles huh?

Sounds good -- we can wait for a photo to try to ID them. Unless damage is significant (and few beetles would do serious damage to Coneflower), we would not recommend using a pesticide on the Coneflower or other pollinator-attracting plants, given the risk of harming them in the process. If VLB is feeding on those other plants, it's probably more incidental and not of concern.

Miri

Good morning.  I'm attaching a photo of the brown beetle that has been causing some damage around the property.  The strongest pesticide i've used as a last resort is pyrethrum and will usually try soap and neem first which hasn't seemed to work on these fellows.  I also understand the effects of using any of these products on the things i'm trying to attract (pollinators).  

You've provided a great resource for helping to make intelligent decisions for stewardship of our earth.

thanks.

michael

Hello  Michael,

Thank you for the photo. The details of the beetle's body shape are a bit hard to make out in the photo (are you able to take another picture or two of it indoors and in brighter light?), but it does not look like an adult Viburnum Leaf Beetle. It's hard to determine what species it is so far, though. The plants being chewed probably are not being seriously damaged (pictures of them as well would help us assess the degree of damage) and should not need treatment. You are correct that pyrethrum will work, but should be one of the options of last resort, since it's a harder-hitting pesticide with regards to impacts on other insects. Spinosad is an active ingredient that is at least a little more selective (and translaminar, meaning it absorbs into the leaf but otherwise is not systemic) in that it largely impacts chewing insects; they ingest the treated surfaces in order to be affected. There may be some organic formulations of spinosad.

Miri