Yes, I have heard that blood meal works well, too. You can find it in the organic section of your garden centers. I've heard, however, that it attracts crows like crazy! Does anyone know if that's true? I've used a repellent called Shake Away with success in my little veggie areas. A little bit here and there is suggested for that stuff. Poodle, both of these products work as repellents because of their odor. Blood meal....that's obvious. Shake Away is laced with the aromatic scent of coyote urine. :-)

I usually trim my Petunias down just because I don't always feel like pinching them, particularly the way they grow in certain spots of my yard. They never seem to resent it. I pinch the flowers on certain ones that I'm paying closer attention to and they just keep blooming. The ones I pinch are usually smaller plants than the others. (This is just what I do, not for any special reason, not because I know some rule...I just do it. Neither activity seems to hurt the plants at all). Linda

Likely it needs light. Also ease back on the water now that you've brought it inside and give it a good haircut [less for the roots to support]. You can try rooting the resultant cuttings in water in case the plant goes. Leave a few leaves on the plant, tho, and put by a window that gets very good sun. It -will- look lanky until you can get it back outside. Or, you can get a gro bulb[s] and rig something up if a sunny window isn't available. I use floor lamps with the multiple swivel heads [purchased inexpensively at wallyworld] to carry everything that has to be brought in during the winter. Make sure the lamp is properly rated for the bulb[s] if you go this route.

Not that anyone has been waiting with bated breath for an update on my paint dilemma, I thought I would finish out the saga anyway just due to the fact that I come here so often to read posts and am always disappointed when they are left unresolved. My husband had finally had enough of looking at patchwork walls and listening to me talk about paint colors so he scheduled a painter to start this past Tuesday and told me to just pick a color and be done with it!! He also said “it’s just paint if you hate it we can have them come back and do a different color”. I told myself the night before I was just going to settle on the Dunn Edwards color Crystal Haze with the accent wall in Metal Fringe. Needless to say when the painters showed up the next morning I panicked and was seeing a lot of yellow in the sample I had up so while they were prepping I decided I was going to just be safe and do the Gray Mist which was what I kept coming back to, with the ever popular Chelsea Gray as an accent wall. Needless to say when I came back with the quart of Gray Mist to try out on my biggest wall it looked too white. 😕😞 At this point I knew the painters were losing patience with me as they were ready to start so I just decided to go back and get a couple gallons of the Olympic Mountains and hope for the best! While they were mixing that I went back to the paint chip wall and found a color somewhat similar to Chelsea Gray called Squirrel Tail which looked promising so I grabbed a gallon of that color for the accent wall. As I was watching the paint go on I was certain I had picked the wrong colors but knew I wouldn’t be able to tell until it dried. So they finished the job in two days and after being unsure at first I am now really liking it!! Hallelujah!! I realize that I had become consumed with all the images of beautifully painted, perfectly designed rooms on the internet/hgtv and I guess was looking for that moment of surprise/elation that you see there and was frustrated at all the “perfect, tried and true no-fail” paint colors out there that just didn’t look good in my house along with the fact that although everyone says “it’s just paint” who in reality wants to fork out another $2000+ to redo it. Also the samplize sheets are good and eliminate all the leftover paint samples and using swatches painted on poster board is somewhat helpful but none of it is really indicative of what the color looks like when it actually goes on the whole wall. I guess the best lesson learned from this is to just pick 3-4 strong contenders and actually paint swatches on your wall and also realize you can actually go a little darker than you think because both rooms I’ve had painted now have turned out looking lighter than the actual little swatch. I will be needing to paint my upstairs sometime in the near future so hopefully I can follow that advice myself and not go back down the rabbit hole 😞 So in conclusion, while it may not be the perfect result I had envisioned I am happy with it. I probably could have gone a little darker/warmer but Olympic Mountains is a very nice light neutral. It may show a tiny hint of green at times during the day but I also haven’t put my shades/curtains back up yet so I’m getting a ton of light in here all day and I’m not super crazy about it at night but I didn’t find anything in this color range that looked great at night and since I’m unwilling to use anything but soft/warm light bulbs I’ll deal with it. The accent wall color (Squirrel Tail) is also not exactly what I had imagined either but it is a lovely rich velvety color that is a nice mix of gray/green/brown depending on the time of day. Anyway thanks to all on here for the advice/input and listening to me ramble on endlessly since my family was no longer listening 😕 Happy painting everyone!!! 😊