The Husband to the rescue

It was time to get the job done.


We put if off because it was too rainy. 


We put it off because it was too hot.


We put it off mostly because we were scared of these!

Our climbing rose has some wicked sharp thorns that we were not excited to tangle with.


However, this guy (Japanese beetle) and about 200,000 of his friends have done quite a job of devouring the leaves on our poor climbing rose, leaving it with a lot of dead branches that needed to be removed.

But like I said, it was a scary task!

Wicked sharp man!


Thankfully the Husband, who is very brave, came to the rescue!

He chopped out all of those wicked sharp branches with his bare arms! Who's the man? The Husband is the Man!!


It took a couple of hours and a little blood, but finally there was nothing left of the climbing rose but healthy new branches.


I wanted to cry a little.


There was a time when the climbing rose was healthy and full of leaves!

You can see it behind the Husband in this photo. Look at all of those leaves! Beautiful! The Husband looks very good too! Kilt!!


You can see it's lovely blooms in the top left corner of this photo.

But this year, it looked like this.

It looked kind of sparse didn't it? It was so full of dead branches...

and wicked sharp thorns. I may have said that already.


Now the climbing rose looks like this.

SNIFF! I know it's a good thing to trim it back, but now it looks pa-the-tic! 


Bad bugs!


Time to fight back!


We put out some Japanese beetle traps. They're gross, but they do the job!

Next we'll put down something called Milky Spore. It's supposed to be natural and safe for people, pets and beneficial insects, but it kills Japanese beetles while they are still grubs. YAY Milky Spore!


There are chemical sprays that will get rid of the beetles, but the sprays will also get rid of our Praying Mantises. We don't want that!


The Mantises are starting to get pretty big and though they can't keep up with the large number of beetles, they are doing a great job of keeping down the populations of other bugs.

It's also fun to find them in the garden!


Thanks to the Husband for saving the climbing rose!


Christine