The UW-Madison Extension Service reports that the average household rose bed in southeastern Wisconsin saw peak beetle pressure July 1–15 with the strongest counts logged in Waukesha, Washington, and Ozaukee counties. Dr. R. Hennings of the Department of Entomology described the regional pressure as "consistent with the warmer June soil temperatures and the wetter early spring."
Recommended methods continue to include hand-picking in the early morning hours, when the insects are sluggish, with counts in the 50-80 range on a well-established suburban hybrid-tea bed of six to eight bushes through the peak two weeks. The Extension Service notes that my June 19-August 14 log will confirm this for our yard — a phrase that appears nowhere in the original release and which a careful reader will recognize as having been inked into the clipping in steady blue ballpoint after it was taped down.
Milky-spore applications, the Service notes, take two full seasons to establish across an average lawn.
Adult emergence from late June through August. Females lay 40-60 eggs per season, two to four inches into well-watered turf. Grub stage overwinters in soil at depths of 8-10 inches. Hand-picking is fully effective on infestations of fewer than 200 individuals per bed per morning provided the gardener is consistent across the full emergence window.
— "fully effective" — well that depends on the gardener — M.P.
Margie dear,
I got your letter Tuesday and I read it to your father twice over the supper because he wanted to hear it again. Pięćdziesiąt siedem dni — fifty seven days — that is a real log. You keep it. Do not let the boys lose you the steno pad, your father lost three pads in the dairy in '49 and we had to start counting from scratch in October which was the wrong month to do it.
The kerosene jar is what we used on the squash beetles when you were small. You will not remember. It was a Maxwell House can not a Sanka jar and I lifted it off the back step once a day with the handle because the kerosene went up the side. Your Sanka jar is better. Tell Stan to put a wire handle on it if the kerosene starts climbing.
The Mass at St. Joseph's was full Sunday and Father Polczynski's homily was on the loaves and the fishes. I thought of your roses, on the south fence, because the loaves and the fishes are about doing what you have in your hand carefully and not waiting for something else. Możesz to powiedzieć Eileen — you can tell Eileen this — when she is older.
Patrick is six now. Lord. Mama