On Tue, 29 Jul 2003 14:54:30 GMT, "Mark. Gooley"
wrote:

Back from a long weekend with my sister and her family
(celebrating my 42nd birthday).

Congrats! Men just begin to start getting good in their 40s!


Not much more damage
from deer or insects, but what there has been has come
home to roost: I think I'm going to lose my R. sericea
pteracantha (growing so nicely after I finally got a wee
rooted cutting this spring -- nurserymen say that it is perhaps
the hardest rose to propagate from cuttings) and my R.
brunonii (and it was all leafy and blooming just a couple
weeks ago!).

I was not in on the deer deterrent discussion because I have no
experience with deer, but the only thing I have heard people say
consistently that works is a very tall fence, if you can do that. I am
sorry, I imagine this has been heartbreaking. What a slap after you
have worked so hard to nurture.


Way thick grass, a creeping variety that spreads
by stolons and perhaps rhizomes and is slightly blue-grey,
is crowding out the cleared areas near the roses that are in
the ground, and hand pulling (perhaps with a pair of good
gloves) seems to be necessary.

Sounds like a variety of crabgrass or something equally nasty. I have
it really bad. Next year you can put down a good pre-emergent
herbicide like CrabX. You do it in earliest spring. I got so far as to
buy it but the bag never made it to the garden. You don't need to hand
pull this stuff, it'll be a full time job! Best I can do is keep it
away from the roots of my roses. I am too busy, that is why my garden
suffers. And with what? Survival, bleah. No fun.


Another batch of the pepper
and egg and garlic mix might be called for: bought 18 ounces
of hot dried peppers, dozen and a half eggs...

Makes me hungry. :-)

A nine-foot electric fence starts to look more and more
appealing.

Do it! It will solve your problem. Also, how about those motion
detector sprinklers?


Or a pack of vicious dogs, even though I'm much
more of a cat man.

You are sounding better every minute. G Dogs are great but they can
also damage gardens, esp. puppies.



How does one bounce back from gardening disaster? It's
getting harder and harder as I get older and more cynical.
Dead china firs, dead bamboos, live sweetgum and persimmon
shoots everywhere...and I can't even get a big healthy thorny
Mermaid that's too big for Bambi and his chums.

Mark., feeling a bit blue



Aww, poor thing, I do know how you feel. I lost many to different
things this year, mostly a raging case of canker plus borers, and
voles eating their roots. I get philosophical in the case of loss
after I have done everything I can. I have just kept everyone watered
and fed and kept the weeds away from them and otherwise have just
disengaged somewhat. (It helps that most of mine were first year
grafted bare roots I was not attached to.) It is too hot to be a
pleasure to work in the garden now, and in the evening the mosquitos
are so bad, and that "Off" stuff is so gross, I just don't want to do
it. Once a week or so I survey the wreckage and note the survivors. A
couple of the roses I thought were dead have put out new growth, not
that they will ever be the same. Dead stumps in the ground: White
Lightnin, Lover's Lane, Melody Parfume, Arizona, Mr. Lincoln, Antigua,
Europeana, Simply Marvelous, Crystalline, Outta the Blue, Granada. All
grafted, so next year I will do ownroots.

Maybe try to think of the bad things about the ones you lost and what
you will do with the space. And build that fence!! And, of course,
come here for commiseration.