I've never had anything eat my impatiens but earwigs do eat other things especially the new ones just hatching out. They hatch out in the hundreds and are ravenous. I have found a sure nonchemical way to get rid of them and not harm anything else. Mix up equal parts of dark corn syrup or molasses, cooking oil and full salt soy sauce. It's easier to do this in the containers. Put about 1/2 inch of it in a small container and bury it up to the rim where you have a problem with them. Cover the container but leave a small space for them to crawl into the container. After a bout with crows digging out my containers for a free meal I now cover them with a stone. The corn syrup or molasses attracts them. The oil doesn't allow them to crawl out and the salt in the soy sauce finishes them off. The soy sauce also makes it dark so they think it's just a hole to hide in for the day. The first time I tried this was just after I planted a bed with marigolds. In one night they chewed those marigolds down to the nubs. I put the bait out in a baby food jar the next evening and checked it in the morning. That jar was full to the brim of little gray baby earwigs. Now I put it out when I plant. I never seem to get rid of all of them but it does cut down on the number. I've stopped mulching because it gives them an alternate place to hide.

Well, since this thread is back at the top again, I might as well give an update. We removed the pinkie (I think I said that above) but left all the other roses. They all seem fine - the canes on the meidiland greened up as they matured and the knockouts look fine as well. (I realized that I planted them WAY too close together though - in only a year they've at least doubled in size!) We bushhogged the fields and had them sprayed with 2-4-D last week. That should take care of the multiflora in our fields. We still have some on the bank out by the end of our driveway and at least one of them is definitely infected with RRD (it's the one I sent samples to the state ag lab from). I can't spray that one because it's surrounded by plants I want to keep, so I guess I'll have to dig it out. Gotta get to that one of these days. Maybe I'll get out there with some aquanet and wilt-pruf to try to contain the mites before the hot weather. I decided not to spray any pesticides. I did put the wiltpruf on my roses before bushhogging - I hope it worked because it royally screwed up my blooms - on every single rose the blooms are messy and look half dead before they even open (buds that formed since I sprayed the wilt-pruf look normal again so I know it was the wilt-pruf that did it). I also tried covering them with painter's dropcloths and sheets during the actual bushhogging process but the wind kept blowing them askew (uncovering half the bush) so that was probably pointless. At this point, I'm just keeping an eye on things as best I can. I got ambitious this year and put in a big veggie garden which took longer to prepare than I thought - we just got the plants in 2 weeks ago - and so I'm way behind on my weeding/mulching in my landscape beds. (BTW, does anyone know why the leaves of my peppper plants are curling and turning yellow?) Hopefully I'll get to pay more attention to the roses soon. I'll have to, because in another couple days, it should be time to start beetle-picking....

A ph of 8 is higher than desirable. However, changing it takes time and it's too late for this crop. Garden sulphur is commonly used to lower ph, but it works over months, not days. Amending the garden soil with peat is also helpful as peat is acidic and acidifies the soil as it decomposes. A *trick* you can put to good effect is to use common, cheap household vinegar when you water. About a cup of vinegar to a 5 gallon bucket of water should do the trick. The idea here is that plants feed in the watery zone immediately next to their roots. This is where the soil ph is most important, right next to the roots. So, water with a small amount of vinegar in the water and it is acidic, just like the rain is. This effect will not last very long, but while it does those roots are able to get the nutrients they need. I have a friend in Texas with a soil ph of around 8-8.5 who did this last year and she reported back to me that the improvement in her plants were immediate (few days). Now, the overall yellowing of your plants may be ph influenced, but the cool, wet, sunless weather is also playing a huge role in this all over the place this year regardless of soil ph.

" For me it's just science we don't understand yet....such as quantum entanglement ... or what Einstein called "spooky action at a distance." Just because we don't understand it doesn't mean it doesn't exist." I think you have it backward. Until something can be demonstrated and reproduced "to be", or to be shown that something "is" or "does", the default is that "it isn't" and "it doesn't". A hypothesis or theory is false and non-existent until proven. It's not that it's assumed to be true until disproven. Put into something more familiar - the theory of evolution of species is accepted today because of the evidence and investigations that have proven and substantiated the hypothesis conclusively. It wasn't the case that the theory was suggested and viewed as being "true" until it was disproven. That would be backward. If someone wants to disbelieve evolution as a matter of faith, that's a belief that contradicts the science. As would be believing in supernatural phenomenon - its existence hasn't been demonstrated so that the default is that its existence is unproven and assumed to not exist.