Hello Mike,

I knew it! When you described the damage
I said to the greatest enabler on earth "Mike
got sawflies on his roses. Damn! I hate those
critters" I am sorry, I really wanted to be wrong
but the way you said they went around the bud
to me is a dead give away.

I don't really know what you can do in Texas
because of the heat, but here is a good link
to look at the possibilities. I got those *bahthards*
when they had just hatched and found some doing
their dirty deed around some of my canes, which
prompted a preemptive strike of horticultural oil
all over them, if for no other reason than because I
didn't have anything I could spray that like you,
didn't make me ill about my bees and my hummers.
It actually sort of worked, but in the end there is a
natural cycle to it and I just tried to be aware of
their presence and use Safer soap to drown them.
A cannon would have been more to my likening at
the time, but then there were the roses to consider.

Here is a link that may bring some comfort to you,
..
http://www.paweekly.com/PAW/morgue/r...21.GARDQA.html

is kind of naive but well intended and somehow comforting,
something a rosarian can use in the presence of winged
enemies.

As far as your photos, send them to



and I will be happy to post them for you with your name
and whatever you want to write about them.
Plain jpgs will do nicely. Don't worry about compression
or any some such. We can take care of it there.

Get yourself a cold drink, go visit with your roses and
don't let the little *bahthards* get you. At least you have
blooms in the making, in here we are still half asleep in frog
pajamas!

BTW, we have a client that BH and I call "huge tracts of
land" and I guess you will know why ....;)

Allegra