I ventured out into the garden this afternoon after a long stretch of disgust and discouragement with it. Lo and behold, it weathered my neglect pretty well, so I did a bunch of weeding and came in much more optimistic than I went out.

Japanese beetles have come and gone. At least they have a short season. Apparently the weather conditions have made this a doozy of a year for them all over Ontario. I was not as vigilant about picking them off the beans as maybe I should have been; hopefully this will not mean I am stuck with a horrible grub problem in the "lawn" next year. They also got at the corkscrew hazel - not a big deal, since that plant is all about winter appeal anyway. Otherwise, though, the damage was encouragingly minimal. Even the beans are recovering, having put out piles of new leaves and blooms.

In other encouraging news: I have rose-explody! The blaze rose re-bloomed with a spray of about 10 flowers that lasted for weeks. Now that it's out of the shadow of the bee balm, the prairie joy rose has at least doubled in size...guess that answers the question of how I make it bush out. And the fairy rose, whose straggliness was worrying me, has put out half again its previous size in new shoots, and is covered in buds. Pictures to follow!

Between the asters, the fairy rose, the assorted sedums, the rudbeckia, and the turtlehead - and possibly also the lemon lights azalea; wtf is it doing putting out flowers now?? - it should be a nicely colourful month out there.