If it's the squash vine borer, you can slit the vine in the mushy spots, slit it as long as you need to to clean out the larvae, kill it with a knife and scrape out the mushy stuff, they bury where you cut into the dirt deep enough, maybe 2 or 3 inches. It may be your beetles that are getting to it, which is what you are seeing. They kill with bacteria wilt by spreading to your vine. I have one vine that looks terrible during midday, but around 6 o'clock, it looks good again.

Sammy, Cucumber beetles come both in a striped version and a spotted version. I know it must be something different from the standard rose pests because I'm sure you've seen plenty of them in your many years of growing roses. If it is about the same size as a spotted cucumber beetle or just a bit bigger than a lady bug, then it likely is a striped cucumber beetle. If it is about 2-3 times as long as the cucumber beetles and lady bugs, it probably is a blister bug or one of its relatives. Page down on the linked website from the Univ. of Conn. to see a striped cucumber beetle. Dawn Here is a link that might be useful: UConn Hort Website w/Image of Stripe Cuke Beetle

Hi All! I have several raised beds and one has Canna and Four O'clocks. When the Jap' beetles arrived just over a week ago I began picking them off. At first first there were only 5 or 10. Then last weekend the amounts began to grow slightly. It was the first real beetle infestation I've had since we moved here 4 years ago. I had a metal Jap' beetle catcher from way back, along with a can of scent. I hung it in the middle of the bed on Monday eve. On Tuesday morning before leaving for out of town, I went to check to see if it was catching. I couldn't believe it. Without to much exaggeration there must have been 500 in the small 4 X 8 area. The pungent scent on Tuesdas hot humid morning must have drawn them to the catcher, with a quick stopover to the plants, from all of my neighborhood, and there was only 1 or 2 inside the catcher. Boy what a screw up that was. Well it's taken me almost a week of picking and drowning to get it under control. I began culling off all the hundreds of leaves they destroyed over the weekend. I had 1 beautiful Hollyhock in the bed that I left that came up from seed. All that's left are the Maroon blooms. I'm going to leave it to see how resilient a plant can be. Last year we had a Maple tree that was infested with the small inch caterpillar and I swear I was going to cut the tree down as we couldn't even use the hot-tub because of the droppings. I'm not that heartless so I'm leaving the Hollyhock as is because I swear the tree has come back stronger than ever. Of course the Holly won't have that chance for next year. But isn't Nature amazing? Jim

Vaporvac, I have Heritage and was thinking about adding them on the side of the wall where it would be nice not to have thorns. Heritage does great for me in the shade and in sandy soil. But the one I have in clay wasn't doing much, though it looked healthy, but now is growing as the weather cools off. Straw and others have commented on Heritage not liking clay and the wall has a clay foundation. Falstaff would be great except the color doesn't work, looking for pink or violet if possible. I have the other 8 ND tied up and have to admit that it looks great from a distance, though it's probably going to refuse to make flowers since it's not so horizontal now! Just measured some of the canes at 12 feet long already and I just didn't expect that kind of growth for years, not months! But 2 of them have to be moved as they are attacking people, LOL! Heirloom's site said that ND could be a shrub also but with 12' canes all the way around, that's a 24' diameter in a first year plant. It's very hard to mow around so now I'm convinced that I need a shrub. I wonder if Rein de Violettes could deal with the shade and clay? I do like your advice of Austins because I've had such good luck with them though. I do give them an obscene amount of water in the heat. Nahema is gorgeous! Oh, and I did see the beetles hiding everywhere during a very windy day yesterday, not just Memorial Day.