Declaration of War

Let it hereby be known that from this day henceforeth, I, the
Gardener, do declare Official War on the "Unmentionable Animals," heretofore known as Deer. I, the Gardener, am entitled to all rights, privileges and means available to me, in order to fight on behalf of the innocent, henceforth known as The Roses. I, the Gardener, shall pursue with vengeance any perpetrator, be it two-legged, four-legged, six-legged, amoebic or moldy, that interferes with the wellbeing of the aforementioned innocent Roses.

Accepted, Stamped, Notarized, Eyes Squinted & Teeth Gritted;
Signed, Sealed, Delivered and Spittin' Mad,
this Sixteenth Day of May, Two Thousand and Six.

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So There. Ok, now that I have that out of my system, I'll start from the beginning. It's been 18 days since I last counted buds so one member of the Rose Support Team and I started on the deck and filled out our little Rose Maintenance Chart.

Fair Bianca #1 has 10 buds, with one about to bloom and one rose missing because I gave it away.
Pat Austin has 7 buds, with three roses missing because I cut them after they faded. No new buds.
Scepter'd Isle #1 has 22 buds. It has yet to bloom but has doubled the number of buds since last count. Sweet!

At the base of the deck stairs, New Dawn still has 0.

Out in the yard around the future patio, we checked for more buds. Graham Thomas, that sad, sad, rose, of course has 0 buds on its feeble 1/2" long replacement limbs. Poor thing. I'll be treating it tenderly for years and hopefully it will forgive me for the Dungeon Water Torture.
Jude the Obscure still has eerie arms reaching up, no new growth and no buds. I'm not sure what it's doing. Maybe having to look at the Graham Thomas right next to it has it scared to death and frozen in a permanent "I surrender!" position.
Here's a photo taken April 25 of these two. There hasn't been much change since then, aside from Graham Thomas losing all limbs, so I might as well use the same photo. Click the photo to see a larger shot of this forlorn scene.

Eden is still at 0 buds.

Moving on, the Blush Noisette had over 100 buds at last count. It now has... counting... 49, 50, 51, 52.

52???

No way! So we both count a second time. And a third time. Yep, 52. That's when my stomach lurched. =O

100 minus ANY means there was mischief. 100 minus 52 means at least 48 buds are missing!!!

I was flabbergasted. I was flummoxed. I was puzzled. There are five blossoms on the Blush Noisette. There are numerous buds. No branches appear missing. This is Garden Mystery #1. "We puzzled and puzzled 'till our puzzlers were sore. Then we thought of something we hadn't before." We checked for evidence. We looked at the base of the rose and saw this disturbing crime scene. It's not a photo for the faint of heart. The arrows point to the... um... mutilated evidence. All around the base of the rose in the mulch were... BUDS. Cut off in their prime of life!

We had no choice but to formulate a scenario:
Along came the...Unmentionable Animal. It sniffed the roses and decided to leave the blossoms alone. Afterall, I did say I wouldn't mind if the deer stopped to smell the roses. But no, a sweet whiff wasn't enough for that animal. That dastardly deer had to stick his quivering snout into my tender, unprotected rose, and rip out a mouthful of precious buds. He stood with his mouth slobbering over my rose bush, crunching with his mouth open, buds falling unceremoniously from his greedy mouth.
Simply disgusting.




Upon closer inspection of the crime scene, we discovered a small branch amongst the fallen buds.
What's this? Up close it looks like eggs of some sort. The Rose Support Team formulated an alternate crime scenario:
Several rasping beetles landed on the Blush Noisette, munching left and right, tearing off rose buds. Then finally, after having dined till full, laid some eggs. I made the executive decision to run with the deer story.






We checked the other roses and discovered the Scepter'd Isle by the mailbox now has 24 buds, up from 2 at last count. But there is evidence that a deer had stripped one of the branches. It must have been two weeks or so ago because there is new growth on that branch.

Fair Bianca #2 has 29 buds, up from 19, with one rose missing because I gave it away. Fair Bianca #3 has 9, up from 7, with one rose missing because I gave it away. No evidence of any deer mischief.

We gathered up the severed Blush Noisette buds and placed them in a cup of water for viewing. I don't know why I did that. It seems inhumane to let them just lie there and dry up.

Why would a deer eat just the leaves on one branch? Why would a deer eat a bunch of buds but leave whole roses intact? Why would a deer not eat all the little buds? I just don't understand how a deer thinks. Not sensible creatures, those deer.

Let it be known henceforth that the Unmentionable Animals are declared NOT smart.
Let it be known henceforth that the Unmentionable Animals probably can't even scheme.

This means War. sigh.

The Chief of the Rose Support Team always says "You gotta be smarter than the materials you're workin' with." Which means I'm going to win this War.