The anxiety of early blooms

February 2017 was warm. We had about ten days where the temperatures were in the high 60s to 70s (our average historical temperature in Philadelphia is 44 degrees). Cherry trees erupted in blooms and I saw a dogwood already flowering by my bus stop. Bulbs got the go-ahead to erupt out of the ground and some started to bloom. Up and down my block, daffodils burst into flower last weekend.

I had a few early bloomers. I watched them carefully, and was then dismayed when they all (including the hundreds in other neighbors' yards) flopped over after one cold night. I kept expecting them to right themselves but they haven't yet. So, I cut mine and brought them indoors.

There are many more that are thisclose to blooming. With freezing temperatures and snow/rain forecast for the weekend, I want to run out and protect them. If the internet is right, though, they should be okay on their own. I hope.

Do you have anything blooming now that is really early for your garden?

Saying goodbye

It's time to pull the trigger.

Some of my plants are not performing or are getting to be invasive. I've been in denial about some of them for years but it's time.

On the Pharm (front yard), I have two different problems:

The Aster 'Alma Potschke' has something wrong with it. I've been in denial about this plant for about five years or so. I used to think that the brown leaves and stems were indicating that it needed more water, but even in years when I watered it a lot, it still looked like this.

The entire bottom of the plant looks dead.

Leaves turning yellow

As a primary part of the front garden, and a plant you see as you walk up to my house, I just can't keep this ugliness around anymore. I don't know if it's a fungus or what, but it's got to go, which is too bad because when it's in bloom, it's a bright, eye-catching plant. So now I'm on the hunt for a medium-size, fall (or repeat) blooming perennial.

On the side of my front porch, I've had two very vigorous silver lace vines. They climbed up a trellis, kept the front door cool in the summer, and were only a pain when I had to cut them down at the end of the year because they were SO big.

In better times.

This is how the vines did this year:

The remaining vine on the left.

I accidentally pulled one out while weeding, which shows how dead it was. The other, as you can see, is still in the ground but doing absolutely nothing. Maybe this past winter, one of the coldest on record, was too much for them. In any case, now I'm on the hunt for a (vigorous but not overly so) vine for this area for next year.

In the back yard, I have a potential disease problem and an invasive problem.

I'm scared to even write this, lest it really be true: I think all of my echinacea have aster yellows. I first noticed it a few years ago in the front yard and pulled out the offending plants. But then this year, it seemed like every single one - front yard, side, back yard - had the tell-tale puff of green on the seed head.

Last year. In better times.

This is how they look right now:

They all fizzled out a couple of weeks earlier than last year. It's possible that that's due to the dry conditions this summer. I really like echinacea. They're a staple of my garden and I don't want to have to rip them all out. I'll continue to monitor them and hope for the best next year, though I suspect I'll be talking about being in denial next fall as I rip them out.


The spiderwort in the back yard are now getting invasive. I'm finding them in the hell strip by the road, for crying out loud. I have 5-6 of them evenly spaced in the back yard and, in late spring, they're often the only thing in bloom.

Two different colors, on the left and right, still in bloom in summer.

When they die, though, they leave big gaping spaces that I've been working on trying to hide (somewhat unsuccessfully). I don't think I'll be too sad to see these go, especially since it will probably take me a few years to completely rid my gardens of them.  In their place, I need to find any sort of late spring/early summer perennial that doesn't look like death after it's done blooming for the year.

They've provided me with more joy than inconvenience, but it's time to cut the cord (and it's a great excuse for fall plant shopping).

Holes in the allée

The allée is still a newer garden. It was started a tiny bit in 2012 but I dug out the rest in 2013. I've added plugs, divided plants, and last fall I bought about $200 worth of perennials and planted many of them there.

But still, when I walked through it this week I noticed that there are a lot of holes. No, not those kinds of holes. We're fortunate that in this part of the city (and probably in many parts of the city), we don't have to deal with moles or voles or other critters. The holes I have are embarrassing because there is nothing growing in them.  I'm sure when I plant new flowers in late summer/early fall that I have a plan in my head but I didn't realize that the plan included leaving great spaces of nothingness.

I seem to have three categories of holes: Places where there's nothing because the plants around it get bigger; bare spaces left when bulb foliage dies; and then just pure poor planning on my part.

To wit: I know that I didn't plant a lot here because the ninebark will eventually be 8 feet across, though since that probably won't happen for several more years, I need to plant and then move when the ninebark takes over. 

And this is a tough spot because when the hibiscus gets going in July, it crowds out everything around it. So instead of giving it space, apparently I planted right next to it and then left blank spaces closer to the pathway. Awesome.

These next two pictures show problems that arise when the bulb foliage finally dies. Then, there will be absolutely nothing in their places. I need to work on some choreography in these spots.

 

Then there are the spaces of nothingness or just really bad planting on my part. Like here - apparently I like to plant on diagonals. 

Here next to the back door - I know it wasn't this empty last year. There were some Geranium 'Rozanne' and more than one Coreopsis but I guess it didn't come back. I planted some annuals there but I have to do something about this. It's a tough area, though, since it gets stepped on all winter when the bench isn't there to block that route.

Under my Eastern redbud (which had TWO flowers this year, by the way, an improvement over zero so it gets to stay), I planted two Amsonia hubrichtii last fall. I know they'll get larger but right now they're just sprigs and it looks so bare.

Or this - let me just bunch plants together around a hole of nothingness, and then plant some annuals in there to try to mitigate the damage.

As you can see, I have a lot of work to do. This mainly involves online shopping for new plants but may also include moving some things around and dividing some plants. For now, I'll just sit here in the a/c and window shop online.

Looking for a few good shrubs

I need your help.

Over the past week or so, I've been putting together a list of perennials to fill in some of the holes in the garden but have realized that I'm deeply unsatisfied with the shrubs I have in most of it. They should help provide structure and definition but they've really an afterthought or just put in wherever I thought I had room. So I'm trying to remedy that with some strategic purchases.

Right now, the area that unsettles me the most is the allée for three reasons: upkeep, privacy, and blah (this is a technical term that will be explained shortly).

Upkeep

I bought three shrubs last year and they're all on one side of the allée. On the other side, the side that borders my neighbors' yard, are three other shrubs that were originally elsewhere in the yard and doing great. Once I moved them to the allée, however, everything turned to crap. Coincidence? Not sure. But the Hypericum frondosum (St. John's Wort) has root rot and two-thirds of it has already been removed. The Viburnum is making a slow recovery from its near death experience last year but still looks awful. And for unknown reasons, my bushy lilac partially died this year (one giant branch just turned brown).

St. John's Wort. It's a massive shrub but two-thirds of it has already been removed.

The writing seems to be on the wall and I'm kind of over the whole thing. I'm sick of babying these guys in the hopes that maybe in a few years they'll look good again. 

Privacy

Earlier this year, I thought my neighbors on the allée side were going to put up a fence. I envisioned structure and some more privacy via a nice wooden one. Well, I went a little too far in my imagination. They will eventually be putting up a fence but it will be a smaller iron one. In the mean time, I'd like a little more screening from their new shed or privacy from their patio when I sit at my back table. 

Craptastic Viburnum in front of neighbors' new shed

Finicky lilac in front of neighbors' new shed

Blah

I took this picture below and was thinking that I'd have to put one hell of a caption to describe where the Viburnum and lilac are, and it hit me:

Too. Much. Green. Everything blends together. There is no definition, no structure. It's all so blah! I guess there was a reason I was looking online at plants like Cotinus 'Royal Purple' and thinking about evergreen shrubs or trees. 

So you can see my dilemma. I'm ready to make changes but I don't know what to buy. Do you have any suggestions, dear internet? I'm in zone 7a. The allée gets full sun (from about 10 am until sundown). These beds are narrow - only about 3 or 4 feet wide, so unfortunately something like a Cotinus is too big. An evergreen would be nice to look at it in the winter when there's nothing else there to look at. I'd love it to help on the privacy front and be low maintenance. I don't care if it flowers (or when, if it does). The area gets more winter wind and snow than other parts of the garden because it's open to all of the other, fence-less yards of my neighbors, so whatever I put there will need to be up for the pummeling it may get in difficult winters.

If you have any suggestions, please feel free to leave them in the comments below. 

Where the bees are

I'm officially worried. 

Unless you have your head in the sand, you know that bees are in serious trouble. But it's one thing to read about it and another to experience it first hand.

Last year I named my side yard the Abeille Allée, or bee lane (you can read about it here), due to the incredible number of bees on the plants in that area of my garden. If you stood still, you could see motion everywhere among the flowers. The bees buzzed my head constantly when I was weeding. There was always activity. 

No bees on the bee balm

This year, the absence of activity is startling. At first, I thought that maybe the long winter and delayed spring meant they were just hiding out until it got warmer. But as the days grew longer and hotter there was barely any bee activity at all in the allée. Their usual favorites - the nepeta, the coreopsis, and particularly the St. John's Wort - were devoid of activity.

No bees on the Nepeta 'Walker's Low'

In fact, it's only been in the last day or two that they've shown up to the St. John's Wort. Happily, that particular bush is now buzzing (sorry!) with activity. 

They've arrived!!

Still, the St. John's Wort has already hit its peak and is starting to lose its flowers so the timing of their arrival is troublesome, considering they've been all over that bush for years as soon as it blooms. And try as I might, I can't find bees on any other plant in the allée.

No bees here either

I'm not sure what to do from here. This is a problem much, much larger than me. I can do my part, but when my neighbors use Round-Up regularly, am I making much of a difference by not using pesticides and trying to use organic seeds?

What's the bee situation like in your garden?  

Out with the old, in with the new

It was circa 2005 or 2006 when a former coworker offered me a free butterfly bush. I was just getting started with the garden and accepted any and all donations (including Neighbor M's obedient plant - bad mistake!) just to fill space in the blank canvas that was my yard.

I have not had a good run with bushes, as my space is just too small for most of the ones I love. Or, as is usually the case, I have no idea what to do with a particular bush so I plop it into the ground until I can figure out what to do with it. Both of these situations applied to the butterfly bush. I put it in the ground next to a retaining wall that separates my front yard and my neighbors' driveway.

God, the maintenance involved! Cut, cut, cut. Always cutting. But it provided a nice (albeit massive) privacy screen between the neighbors and I. Whenever I thought about cutting it down, I'd see butterflies flocking to it and would feel guilty, and I would leave it alone. And then, because I'm a total wackadoodle, I'd feel doubly guilty because my grandmother used to call my sister "her butterfly" and felt that cutting it down would disrespect both of them (one who has been dead for 15 years, the other who would not give a crap if I had a butterfly bush or not).

You can see the bush in the above photo taking up the entire upper right corner. It extended about 4 feet over my lawn and, when not doing damage control in my neighbors' driveway, 4 feet toward their house and pinstriping their cars. I couldn't even get the lawnmower past it, so there was a section of my front yard that never got mowed. I was one of those people. I might as well have put a car up on cinderblocks in the front yard since I wasn't mowing part of the lawn!

The neighbors finally asked me to trim as it was scratching their cars. The neighbors who, by the way, are totally cool with anything I do and have never complained. It was clearly getting bad.

There's nothing like an impending winter coupled with a 50% off all plants sale (and complaining neighbors) to get one's rear in gear and trying to complete fall garden projects. I found two Nandina domestica at my local big box store for $10 each. Red berries! Winter interest! $10 each! They were going to replace the butterfly bush, but first I had to remove it.

[insert string of expletives here]

It took every single one of these tools and an hour and a half to get that thing out:

Do you know what it's like to try to saw at roots a foot below the ground with your ass pointed at the neighbors across the street for what seems like eons? You manage to saw through one five-inch root after ten minutes only to find that there are others you can't see holding it in place. Just in case you're not too bright - the situation sucks. Here's my tip of the year - do not let bushes that you don't want/don't have the space for languish too long in your garden. By the time you try to dig it out, it'll have giant taproots.

I put my hand shovel there for a size comparison. I'm not exaggerating when I tell you how big that bush had grown both above and below ground.

The only way it all finally came out is because I used my Hulk-like strength to twist and turn it until it broke in several pieces and I could saw at the last taproot. Success!

The story doesn't end there.

I decided that after all of that, in the declining sunlight and after an hour and a half of busting my butt, it was a good time to look up the sun and space requirements for my ten dollar Nandina domesticas, as the tag attached to the branches identified it.

The tag indicated it needed morning sun and would grow seven feet high and seven feet wide.

[insert string of expletives here]

I did not buy those plants on a whim to have to go through this ordeal again! I wanted something easier - something that would not scratch my neighbors' cars, something that I wouldn't have to prune every week! I almost cried as I sat on my front stoop Googling "How to keep Nandina domestica pruned and petite". I certainly cursed under my breath.

In the end, I decided to put them in the ground and worry about their size in the spring.

Not a whole lot of privacy, but pretty colors

But wait! There's more!

When I was removing the bushes from their pots, I noticed that both had stickers that said Nandina 'Firepower'. Running back to Google, I found that this cultivar is berry-less but only grows to 3-4 feet. I can deal with that, so I'm hoping the stickers prove to be the correct identifier and not the random tag on the leaves. I guess we'll see in eight years when I get tired of them, too. For now, isn't that foliage fantastic?

One other PSA for this year - Nandina domestica shows up on many invasive species lists, so check your state's list before going out and planting one. Apparently the birds eat the berries, poop them out, new plants grow, yadda yadda. This plant does not appear on Pennsyltucky's list so I was comfortable planting a couple.

More carnage

Walking around this week taking pictures for Bloom Day, I passed by the giant rose bush twenty times at least. This is the rose bush that came with the house when we bought it almost a decade ago. It used to climb an arbor (that rotted and has been removed) but now is just a giant bush that I try to manage.

So I'm walking by, back and forth, back and forth, each time ducking under one of the giant canes that had grown across the pathway. At some point I decided to try to photograph the rose hips for Bloom Day. I looked over and saw this:

Seriously!? This has been the most laid back rose in the garden. I don't water it, I don't feed it, and I only occasionally prune it. And now - now!? - Pinkie has passed on her rose rosette disease.

This one is not going down without a fight. Wish me luck - I think I'm going to need full body armor to take it out.

So long, farewell...

Installing our fence a couple of years ago was difficult - it was making permanent the division of our yard into two (mentioned here).  We were also cutting ourselves off from our nice new neighbors, though I always hoped they understood that we're DINKs and need some quiet time on this side of the fence. But one of the things that made it easier for me was the excitement about growing climbing roses. I had a vision that they would grow up the fence and then trail through the lattice top.

I chose a rosa (Rosa cl. Pinkie) without a lot of thorns in case it trailed down the other side and the neighbor's kids got too close to it. It's also a double-bloomer, so I'd have softly fragrant roses twice a year. In my mind it would (and did for a short while) look like this:

Friends who grow roses tell me they're not that difficult to grow, but I don't really know what I'm doing with them. I didn't have luck with this one (I ripped it out at the end of last fall). This rose came with the house and does well but I don't really know what I'm doing with it so she gets ignored a lot.

So, for months, when I'd see the many new red canes shooting up, I thought - wow! Pinkie sure is an aggressive grower.

If you know anything about roses, you can see where this is going.

In July, I read Jason's post asking for help for his rose and though I was in a bit of denial after reading it, I realized that my Pinkie does, in fact, have rose rosette disease. (By the way, I also diagnosed my echinacea with aster yellows disease after reading Jason's blog last year. I sense a theme here.)

Surely, though, I could control this disease! I read that it can be managed by cutting off the affected canes, so that's what I did in August. I would win this battle! I would still have my dream of cascading roses over my fence!

Please ignore the clover that acts as grass 'round these parts

As you can see by this picture I took today, am not winning this battle:

So long, Pinkie. I enjoyed my time with you and we had some beautiful moments together, but you're going be removed in the next month or so when I can find the time.

I'm going to place a personal ad out in the universe, so if you know of a plant that fits the bill, please let me know.

Wanted: Climbing perennial plant for small city garden. Attractive location along wooden fence with lattice top. Must have flowers. Needs to do well in morning shade and afternoon sun. Fragrance a plus. Roses need not apply. 

Update on the half-dead viburnum

I wanted to thank all of you for your suggestions about the problematic viburnum in my last post. Here's where I stand at the moment:

Summer Snowflake clearly heard us talking about her, because she started doing this:

Tease!

and this:

Wow, that's a terribly fuzzy picture. Sorry!

I also cut into her, per many suggestions, and she's alive and green.

But the fact remains that she looks terrible and since I'm all about appearances, I don't want a dead-looking bush in such a prominent position. This weekend she's getting the old heave-ho, I think. I think. Do you hear that, Summer Snowflake? Now's the time to bust out some flowers!

In truth, if she survives the apocalyptic storm and hail that's coming our way tomorrow, I might take it as a sign to see what she does for a few more weeks, at least until I make up my mind about what bush to purchase to replace her.

In other odd news, I turned from photographing the viburnum and saw this really strange leaf on my backyard table. Oh hey, just kidding, it's actually some cooked lasagna noodles. I think it's J's attempt to feed Stanley, the one-eared squirrel. Either that or we're getting some freaking weird hail.

Appetizing!

When bad bushes happen to good people

Back in March, I moved my viburnum from the front yard to the side to continue to develop a privacy screen between me and my neighbors (I blogged about it here). I was religious about watering every day. It formed new buds, then leaves, and even tiny flowers emerged (though not the full flowers you'd see on a healthy viburnum).

Everything was going great!

Then I got the great idea in early May to remove the two wooden stakes holding it up, because surely 2 months is long enough for it to have grown roots that will stabilize it, right? Clearly common sense is not one of my strong points.

That weekend was very windy, and the viburnum kept toppling over again and again. During one of the times when I was trying to right it, I noticed all sorts of fuzzy white things on the undersides of the leaves. Then I noticed some little bugs in the crooks of the branches.

See the fuzzy white thing on the leaf?

Uh-oh.

Some internet sleuthing made me think they were mealybugs (though in hindsight, I'm not so sure). When they didn't budge after spraying them with water, I did something I never do. I bought and used pesticide.

That didn't go over so well. The fuzzy white cocoon-type things are still there. And now it looks like the entire viburnum is dead.

Dead. Or just hibernating in June.

The leaves have curled, shriveled, and turned brown. The flowers are gone. And those damn fuzzy white things are still there.

However, from what I've read, mealybugs may cause the leaves to wither but not necessarily kill the shrub, so I don't know what's going on. Did I underwater? Is it bugs? Was it the pesticides? Is it really dead or just not looking so good?

No matter what caused the current situation, I have an 8-foot-tall dead-looking shrub in my yard. And here is where I turn to you, internet readers. What would you do?

To help, I'm including some pictures of how it looks in the context of everything else around it:

From backyard looking toward front: L-R - 2-year-old Eastern redbud, possibly dead viburnum, and dwarf lilac on the far right 

Opposite view. Eastern redbud in foreground, possibly dead viburnum in middle of photo.

Your choices are:

a) Keep the shrub and hope it comes back to life next year

b) Remove the viburnum and plant something else in its place (if so, suggestions?)

c) Treat it somehow - it just needs some TLC!

d) Other - Insert your suggestion here

Something's eating Barbara

Remember Barbara?

Something's eating her. Literally.

She's my first citrus tree and I'm not quite sure what to make of it. Truth be told, I haven't investigated that much. I don't like bugs, and I don't like knowing there are bugs in my house. So I've only kinda sorta been looking for the culprit, until today. If I don't see anything, it doesn't exist, right?

But the poor girl has been dropping a lot of leaves and so I went to clean them up this morning. While looking in her large pot, I saw movement.

And then I immediately felt like there were things crawling on my head. This is why I haven't looked too hard. When the heebie jeebies attack, they attack! Fifteen minutes later I'm still scratching my head, and not because I'm trying to figure something out.

But I decided to put on my big girl panties and grabbed a pair of gardening gloves. I saw a little bug and tried to grab it and squish it. I'm not sure if I was successful because I didn't look to see if I dropped squished bug in the garbage can or not. Then I poured water in the pot, hoping to drown whatever it was. I doubt I was successful with that tactic.

So here I sit trying to figure out what's eating Babs.

The first possibility that I found is a fuller rose beetle, only because the pest photos look similar to what I saw for .5 seconds in the dirt. However, the leaf-eating pattern doesn't quite look like what's happening with Barbara.

What does mostly fit the leaf-eating pattern is a grasshopper, but I haven't seen any of those on or near the tree.

Good. Beetles or grasshoppers. My itching is in full force right now.

Without knowing exactly what I'm dealing with, I'm not sure exactly how to treat it. Most websites I've read indicate that pests are not a real threat to the lime tree and just cause cosmetic damage. Barbara is really just to look at; I don't expect to be able to grow a lifetime supply of limes from her. This website suggests soapy water or neem oil. I know I could try it, but I'll have to put some garbage bags down around her, as she's too big and heavy to keep moving outside to spray for bugs.

I would love some advice or direction if anyone has any!

To move or not to move

Early last year, I became aware of an organization here in Philadelphia called Tree Philly. It's a greening initiative that, among other things, gives away free yard trees to interested residents. Though we put up a fence last year, it didn't enclose our entire yard. I was (and am) interested in natural privacy screens and a free tree seemed like a great idea. So, I filled out a short application and picked up my tree on a rainy day in April.

I selected an Eastern Redbud both for the size that it would eventually become (only 15-30 feet) and for the beautiful display of flowers in the spring. I wanted to plant it on the side of the house, where it might eventually screen us in from all of the new construction going on next door. But it had to remain pretty small because we only have about 10 feet between our house and the property line. I didn't want something that was going to bump into the house.

Photo from Gardenality.com

As this fall and winter progressed, and the ugly construction next door resumed, I found myself looking out the window. In full view is the blue porta potty that has a place of honor for the contractors. And I realized - I planted the tree in the wrong place. I don't know what I was thinking. It is off to the side of the kitchen window, not really in front of it (where it'd block out some of the ugly new view). Again, what was I thinking?

So now I don't know if I should move it when spring arrives or hope it will block some of the view when it gets a little bit bigger and a little bit leafier. 

According to About.com, it's perfectly okay to transplant a tree. I'm assuming it's probably doubly okay to transplant one whose trunk is about the size of two quarters (read: tiny). And according to the USDA, my tree may eventually spread 15-25 feet (hello shade!). So it looks like either of my options would work. I guess I'll wait to see what the tree does in the spring and decide from there. And hope, in the mean time, that the blue porcelain throne makes an exit sometime soon.

Aster Yellow disease

I was reading Garden In A City this week and noticed he kept mentioning Aster Yellows infecting his echinacea, thereby requiring the removal of all of his coneflowers. Oh, an invasive yellow aster plant, I thought? Let me Google that.

No, it's apparently a disease, and one with no known treatment except to rip out the plants and destroy them.  According to this site, symptoms in coneflowers include "replacement of flowers by tufts of small, green, deformed leaves."

Image courtesy of http://www.ipm.iastate.edu/ipm/hortnews/2006/9-13/asteryellows.html

Ah yes. I've seen that before, in my neighbor M's yard. We were looking at them this summer and trying to remember if she'd planted a double coneflower there, because we didn't know why they looked so funny. And if memory serves me correctly, I had a couple of them in my front yard this year. 

I've emailed my neighbor to let her know what I found, and it looks like I have some digging to do in the spring. I'm not sure why I've had all sorts of problems this year - hollyhock rust, aster yellows, the annihliation of my rose bush. Maybe it's time to really look into more native plants. 

The sedum saga continues

I am watching a bird out of my back window. It's perched on a sedum plant chowing down. It is either eating what's eating my sedum (in which case, yay!) or it is eating my sedum. If that's the case, birds eat perennials?

Hollyhock rust

The hollyhocks I bought earlier this year are getting big. No signs of flowers, but I didn't expect them to flower in the first year.

Unfortunately, I noticed today that a number of the leaves have orange spots on them. Okay, a lot of orange spots and a lot of holes. The mosquitos have obviously prevented me from doing my personal garden tours in awhile. Thanks to Google, I discovered that it is a disease called hollyhock rust.

According to finegardening.com, I should remove any infected leaves now before the rust spores continue to spread, and/or use a fungicide. I prefer to steer clear of chemicals in my garden, but it looks like most of the leaves have some orange on them. What to do?

I did read on some garden forums that sprinkling corn meal around the base of the plants should prevent the disease from spreading. So it looks like I'll be removing most of the leaves and getting some corn meal at the store tomorrow. Maybe I can make muffins too, while I'm at it.

Summer blues

It's that time of the season when the only thing that seems to be in bloom are the Black-eyed Susans. What was glorious only a month ago is now dying, dry, and colorless. It's too early for fall plants; it's too hot to weed. The manic energy I had in the spring is completely gone.

I bought a Groupon to a local garden center this week and am looking up plants that might fill in some of the dead spaces for next year. Of course, I'm likely going to have to spend time expanding my flower beds, as they're too small and squished. That means more work in the humidity.

First world problems!

Again with the sedum

Something is eating my sedum again. Last year, the plants made it through the summer pretty unscathed, but this year big chunks are already missing from the leaves.

I have seen ants, teeny tiny black bugs (smaller than a pinhead) and ladybugs on them. I know we have slugs here and there.

My first guess is that the black bugs are aphids. Ladybugs eat aphids, which might explain why I've seen the pretty red bugs around lately. Apparently there are even black sedum aphids (see here). I have aphids on my daylilies, though, and they leave dead brown spots where they've been eating. What's happening now is more like bites are being taken out of the leaves. So my second guess is slugs. Jerks.

My plan of attack (shh! don't tell the pests!) is threefold:

First, I was going to chop the sedum this weekend anyway to prevent them from blooming too early. To attack the aphids, I'm also going to squirt them with some dish soap + water. Finally, I'll make a slug beer trap and leave it out around the plant to see if I catch any of the slimy guys. Wish me luck.

A rose by any other name would not smell as sweet

I am not a rose person. I have never enjoyed getting them in flower bouquets. I thought they were cheesy when my high school boyfriend got them for me every.single.day. And as a gardener, I've always shied away from them because I was afraid they were too high maintenance.

I was right.

When we bought our house, there was a large rose bush that was entangled in an arbor. I ignored it, it bloomed twice each summer, and I thought I'd been wrong about how difficult roses were to maintain.

On a whim a couple of years ago, I bought another rose, Rosa 'Secret'. It has one of the most intensely fragrant scents I've ever smelled in any flower, let alone roses. It's a hybrid tea rose and wouldn't get too large for our small city garden. I planted it in full sun and left it alone to do its thing, thinking it'd be as easy to maintain as the one by the arbor.

But oh god! This rose! If it didn't smell so good, I'd have trashed the thing years ago. Every year it seems that the day its leaves form fully it is immediately plagued with black spot. I think it also has rust. I just removed about a hundred aphids via hose. The stems look like they're about to wither and die.

I don't really want to use chemicals. A neighbor with beautiful roses suggested a systemic granular product, but it seems those protect against bugs and not disease. For now, I'll just cut off the diseased leaves (i.e., all of them) and let it look naked.

My poor ghetto rose. You're ugly on the outside but really sweet if people get close to you: