Yes, it does seem to be a Viburnum prunifolium - "Blackhaw, Black Haw, Blackhaw Viburnum, Sweet Haw, and Stag Bush" The berries become edible after frost. The bark can be used medicinally. Very cool! Thank you! :D

I agree with the above posts. A two-pronged attack is needed. First of all, get rid of all your disease-magnet roses, and replace them with roses rated as highly disease-resistant. One of the posts above lists some antique roses that are lovely and especially thrive in Zone 8 and southern regions generally speaking. There are also modern roses that are rated highly disease resistant or "exceptionally healthy" (if you are looking at David Austin's beautiful shrubs). The one thing you will probably need to do is give up completely on hybrid teas--very few rank as highly disease resistant--in fact, maybe none of them do. The second step is a rigorous fungicide program. I'm not from your region, so I can't say for sure, but based on what others have experienced, I'd say you may need to spray every couple weeks--all season long, possibly. It depends on how resistant your new disease-resistant roses turn out to be. At any rate, I also recommend Bayer Advanced Garden Disease Control for Roses, Flowers, and Shrubs (or some long name close to that--I keep forgetting the whole thing). There are probably others that work also, but my understanding is that the Bayer fungicide kills current BS infection and prevents new ones from forming. Not all fungicides perform that dual function. DO NOT USE ANY OF THE BAYER COMBO PRODUCTS (2 in 1 or 3 in 1). There ought to be a law against them! Needlessly destructive to the environment! Good luck. Kate

I just want to give an update on my poison ivy. After due deliberation and much consideration I decided I could carefully target just the poison ivy leaves with an Ortho poison ivy killer without it getting into the ground. I began with a small area first and waited to see what would happen. At first I thought perhaps it had no effect at all, but then a few weeks later I noticed that tiny patch I'd sprayed was brown and dead. So I sprayed the rest. It took a lot of patience and a couple of rounds to get it all and is a slow process just as daninthedirt said, but it looks as though it has finally succeeded! So my next step will be removing that patch of dirt and hopefully removing any roots with it and then bring in some fresh dirt. I figure that's the best way to assure I'm removing as much poison residue in the soil as possible. I'll wait awhile before doing this step to give the poison a chance to complete its job on that root system. I, of course did these courses of poison during long stretches of dry weather so it didn't wash off the leaves. Next time this problem arises I'm going to try the vinegar recipe method for comparison. Thanks for all the help and good advice!

They do have a choice. As much as any creature with a micron sized brain, if it even qualifies as a brain. I think of it as a series of if-then statements. Years ago Jim Amrine told me about the mites being placed on leaves of R. bracteata: the mites hated that substrate and moved actively to leave. When I visited him, the one place he knew he could find E.f. mites early in the summer did yield them. And they were on the stem, even through the move back to his office. And I got to watch the littel b*****ds as they stayed where they were. And I asked him why they were so un-mobil. He said had seen them chased with a probe and they really can move. Maybe we can make an olympic sport of chasing eriophyid mites with a probe or (in a certain lab in California) a cat's whisker.? To catch a (very light breeze) they have to get out in the "open" which may not be that large to something 120microns long. They do have six "feet" that will hold them to stems. Try to think of them as if-then statements: Rose under me? Stay Not-rose under me? Go. Moisture I can suck? Stay Moisture not? Go. Also remember these are so small that everything may be a threat to them. Again if-then.