Garden woes

I haven't been able to garden an hour every day as planned because the mosquitoes are really, really thick right now. The bad thing is that part of the reason they are thick is because the weeds are thick and high - see the problem? I can't get rid of the weeds because the mosquitoes are too thick, and the mosquitoes are so thick because I can't get rid of the weeds. So I do 5-10 minutes at a time and just hope that it will eventually get done.

I don't worry about the mosquitoes because they make me itchy. I don't react to them. I worry about them because of mosquito-borne illnesses. Living in the subtropics, there are diseases I need to worry about. I'm not invincible, as much as I would like to be.

And today I walked out and my Belinda's Dream rose looks like lace. The diagnosis? Leafcutter bees. The good news is that the bee (they tend to be solitary so it's probably just one female) probably won't do any major damage to my rose, it's mainly cosmetic. The other good news, since this rose is under my clothesline and close to the house, is that leafcutter bees tend to be nonaggressive.