For a day that began so well...yesterday ended sadly. We had to totally cut back our young Hawthorn tree. It is only about 6 years old...just beginning to get bushed out and this summer had the greatest crop of beautiful pink flowers ever. It seems to have contracted a bacterial infection known as "fire blight"..highly contagious and usually fatal. ..and apparently the only way to try...that is just "try", to stop it ... is prune, prune, prune. So...now it is just a small trunk with stubs protruding...and then I was reading even more on it and some experts say ...to leave about 12 inches so that the infection does not spread to the trunk...hmmm... maybe we went too far on some stubs...not good.

This morning I was out there before 7:00 a.m., trying to beat the sun to the hedge leaves. Last night I sprayed it with Trounce for a major infestation of aphids (worst I have ever seen). I have not been out in the yard much this summer with this cast. Walking on the uneven surface of the lawn is deadly...it almost throws me over if I step into a real dip. I am sure I would have noticed that the last 6 feet of the hedge was suffering terribly if I had been out as much as I usually am in the good weather. Perhaps we could have done something sooner on both plants.... So, that too, is looking more than a little peak-ed if you know what I mean. Sigh.... it is always some darn thing or another isn't it? Now, all we can do is wait and see what happens with both. I don't know.... can a person kill Cotoneaster? Probably.