Catbird Rose Garden and my friends Mocking Bird and Earwigs?

Nesting in the Garden!
Weeds and Vines Going
Wild!

On the Lookout!
Don't you bring the Mower
up in here!

I have not been keeping up with the Rose Gardening.  There are yellow leaves. black spots, insects, and weeds all over the place.  When the old red roses in the garden bloom,  they only bloom 1 time a year and I do not mess with them much while they are in bloom.  I'm not one for cutting and making rose bouquets.  The red roses in the garden don't have much of a scent, anyway.  It becomes real hard to take care of the roses when they are done blooming.  While I was away during Memorial Day Weekend another complication occurred.  It appears that my relationship with the catbird has gone much further than I expected.  The catbird has moved in!  First the strawberries, than the birdbath, and know the increased number of insects in the garden have made the rose garden the perfect home, until I returned.  I don't know if they will stay.  They are only about 5 feet off the ground, they will have to put up with my lawn mower in the back of the garden and me pulling some of their weed cover down!  I am trying to be careful and would like my new friends to stay.  I certainty do not want to kill them with any chemicals and maybe I want to leave all the bugs for them to eat and some weeds and vines to cover them.  So, what about the rose garden?  Not sure what I will do.  I have all this left over chemical based insect and disease control that spays all over, but I will not use that.  I will probably look to buy more of the Bayer Advanced All-in-One Rose & Flower Care.  This product can be mixed and poured at the base of each rose bush and should not disturb my friends.  It takes more time, but I am willing to make some compromise for my new roommate.  I wish my new catbird friends good luck there new home.  Last year they lived down the center of an evergreen tree, but I believe this was already fully loaded with sparrows.  I have discovered that these catbirds will eat the berry based bird suets and I'm thinking about grabbing them some meal worms.  They ate a lot the meal worms last year.

Tasty Earwigs

Now, when I came back from Memorial Day I had to mow the lawn.  We been here a long time and the yard is full of crap.  I got to move things all over the place while mowing the lawn.  This is where me and my new friend the Mocking Bird made first eye contact.  We would have a stare down for about 5 minutes and then the Mocking Bird would just swoop in and ear all the earwigs it could find under the crap I just moved out of my way.  The mocking bird would stand all over just behind my shoulder waiting for all you can eat earwigs.  I would take a break and stand and wait while my new friend the mocking bird enjoyed some all you can eat at Charlie's Earwig Farm.  Man there sure are a lot of earwigs around

More Earwigs!

 this year!  I found one crawling around in a medicine cabinet, tough it was in  the basement.  Writing this I went ahead and looked up the earwig and what I read gives me some new feeling for this ugly insect.  I included a link for this reason.  1.  Myth about them going in your ear, (although I once had something my ear the nurse would not show me when cleaning my ear, she got rid of it immediately, earwig?) 2.  The pincers will not hurt you, and the thing that really made me feel bad about smashing and spaying my new friend the earwig is...3.  Many earwig species display maternal care, which is uncommon among insects. Female earwigs may care for their eggs, and even after they have hatched as nymphs will continue to watch over offspring until their second molt.  Although, I'm sure they make a good meal for the Mocking bird.  It reminded me of eating Crabs!

Oh, and let me not forget my Love Bird Cardinals!