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This Year's Insect and other thugs

I haven't seen any grasshoppers around here (here being between San Jose
and San Francisco, just across the valley from Karl), but I've seen a
number of what I assume are some form of June bug, mostly lying dead in the
backyard, but a few have been bumping into walls as they fly like a small
helicopter. I don't remember ever seeing these bugs here before. They're
about 1 1/2" long, iridescent blue-green beetles. They seem to be more like
August bugs around here, as I didn't start seeing their carcases lying
around until about a month or so ago. I saw a lot of big yucky looking
white grubs in the area last spring while digging, which I suspect were the
precursors to these clumsy bumblers. As far as I know, they haven't caused
any great damage, either in grub or adult form, but after thirty years
living here, I'm a little surprised to see them. Has anyone else?

Someone mentioned my most hated tree: Ailanthus. I grew up next door to a
grove of huge, tall, magnificent-looking, smelly, suckering, seedy
ailanthus. They were in the back of a deep lot, and managed to send suckers
(!) all the way across the street in front to come up in a neighbor's yard.
We fought suckers and seedlings in our yard all the time. That yard also
had problems with oak root fungus; to our great disappointment, Ailanthus
is resistant to that particular nasty. And the smell from the crushed
leaves or pulled up seedlings...ugh.

Okay, one more. Due to El Nino, the Modesto Ash out front has had a bad
summer full of wooly aphids. They've been dropping honeydew all over the
front yard since early July. My husband has to wash his car off every
morning. An early army of ladybugs and their larvae was decimated when the
city sprayed the street trees (the aphids hid in the curled up leaves and
survived to drip even more). The city finally injected a systemic
insecticide in the trees, which seems to have improved the situation,
though not completely cured it. Has anyone else had to battle this
particular bug?

I'm keeping all the pergola suggestions...one of my plans for our back yard
is to build a sort of gazebo with white flowered vines around it. I've been
considering the two clematis Sean mentioned, and am gratified to hear
neither tends to overwhelm as much as lonicera can (I grew up with a
honeysuckle on the back fence and remember mostly the deadwood under the
green growth...that and sucking the nectar out of the flower!). Thanks for
all of the ideas and thanks, Anthony, for asking about pergola vines.

Cheryl

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Wayne & Cheryl Renshaw
renshaw@best.com

http://www.best.com/~renshaw
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