Return of the Mystery Pruner?

We've had a volunteer rose bush that grows in the planter beside the garage.  Cindy periodically cuts it back and tries to dig out the roots, but it persists and eventually reappears, as it did this year.  It wasn't high on the gardening priority list, but this morning I noticed that most of the canes had been raggedly chopped back, most of them about 5 or 6 inches off the ground.  

Just A Couple of Sticks

And One Long One

One cane was still about a foot long, and one small one had been left completely alone.  None of the other plants showed any sign of damage at all.  I thought it might have been a skunk because I had noticed a kind of skunky smell in the area, but Cindy pointed out that the plant about two feet away is called Skunk Plant for a very good reason--that's what it smells like.  When the leaves are disturbed, it smells very much like a skunk has passed by recently.  

So what kind of critter eats rose canes?  And apparently nothing else.  The last time we had a critter "prune" some of our citrus plants, we eventually concluded it must have been a deer.  See http://plantagarden-itllgrowonyou.blogspot.com/2012/01/new-garden-mystery.html  Even though we live in a city of 1.3 million people, surrounded by freeways, deer do sometimes come down the San Diego River, sometime with startling results.   https://plantagarden-itllgrowonyou.blogspot.com/2013/01/yes-deer.html

I'm finding it hard to believe that deer would be such selective eaters that they would prefer a few rose canes to whole garden beds full of tomatoes, green beans, eggplant and other veggie delights.  And although Cindy's anti-varmint panels have been very good protection against the ravages of the California Ground Squirrel population, I don't think they would stand up to a determined deer.

It's still a mystery.  

First Rose...And Whitefly

Ole

The lovely red Ole (should be an accent mark there, but I don't know how to do that) was the first of the roses to bloom this year.

We love the brilliant red of this rose, so we went over to take a closer look.

Then we noticed the aphids and the Whitefly, tiny white sap-sucking insects, on the unopened buds.  They excrete Honeydew and a large population of Whitefly can devastate a plant.  Ugh.

Whitefly

 A blast of water is one way to get rid of these pests.  We prefer not to use insecticides, because they may also take out beneficial insects, such as Lady Beetles and Lacewings, that eat Whiteflies.

Time for the Bug Blaster.

Everything's Coming Up Roses...

Ole

Spring and the roses are popping out all over in Cindy's small rose garden.  The Ole rose is at its most brilliant right now.  We love the deep red color of this rose.  It's a joy to sit on the front porch in the evening, finishing our wine and seeing all the beautiful roses.

At least that's what I see.  Cindy, like most avid gardeners, tends to see the spots of rust, the scale, the advancing armies of aphids, the occasional weed that has had the temerity to creep into the bed....

More Ole

I'm learning that gardeners can't just sit and enjoy their gardens; they're always running through the mental "to do" list and sometimes they can't resist jumping up and grabbing that weed.

The rest of the roses are coming along, too.  The Moonstones with their delicate pink rims have started to flower, but the yellow roses haven't really got going yet.  Every year Cindy threatens to tear out one of the yellow roses, but relents when it starts flowering.

The real hit of the neighborhood, however, is the Double Delight rose.  That rose is the most aromatic of the roses we have and many mornings we've seen a mother and daughter stopping to smell our Double Delights.  They're beautiful roses with a lovely scent--a true double delight.

Double Delight