Yellow Roses, Early August

 My yellow rosebush finished its bloom this past week.  I was so pleased at how well it did, in spite of Japanese beetles (for a while Annie and I were picking them off the bush morning, noon, and night!).  The fresh blooms on new growth did not disappoint, and I'm going to bravely (I'm a little scared), do a second gentle pruning this month in order to encourage a September bloom--and also to try to retrain the shape of the bush, which needs a little help.  The flowers are wonderfully fragrant.  They are so nice that I sometimes feel badly, plucking the Japanese beetles off in the midst of their exult, because can you imagine being buried among the petals of a sweet-scented rose?  And then having two cruel fingers wrench you out of it?

But I don't feel too badly about wrenching them out, because if they're left unchecked, they will eat the blooms to pieces in no time at all. 

    My squash plants didn't fare so well, and I grew weary of trying to battle squash bugs.  I sort of gave the garden over to them, and what lives, lives!  Same with the silky dogwood in the front yard, which is a happy place for the dogwood sawfly.  I spent a couple mornings picking the chalky larvae off the underside of the leaves, and then sort of shrugged and gave up.  Maybe I'll be more diligent next year. I have ambivalent feelings about the silky dogwood anyhow; its spring bloom is rather delightful, and if it survives the wasps, it has nice little fall berries, and the birds seem to love it, so on balance, it's probably a good shrub to have. 

August is a lovely mess: the morning glories are over the porch, all my spring and early summer blooms are gone, the lavender has gone grey, the weeds overtake the tomato plants, and it's too hot to do much more than sip iced tea and watch the junebugs whiz by, but oh--I love it anyhow!