Ceramic pomanders filled with rose potpourri & a lavender sprig or clove are lovely for lingerie or linen drawers, hung in cupboards or suspended from coat hangers or hooks. https://tinyurl.com/ycdly8go Rosary beads were originally made from rose petals. Crafted a necklace of those years ago, probably from reading this 1983 article in Mother Earth News. http://www.motherearthnews.com/diy/make-rose-beads-zmaz83jazshe?pageid=2#PageContent2 Like to scatter them as you do, Patti & Sultry, just for their beauty. Birds will sometimes scoop them up or a rabbit or turtle will come by for a nibble. Also dry them in baskets & on copper screens, filling clear glass candy type containers with layers of color or a random mix. Pressed & used on lampshades, on & within ornaments, even in a locket. So many ways to use rose petals, we've only scratched the surface! Sue

This may sound wasteful to some, but I got to thinking if you want to cut the flowers off, what if you bought some bulk plastic knifes, and just used one knife to a plant, so as not to spread anything.. I am not sure if this idea will be considered Genius or really stupid.. hahahah

My all-time-favorite house gift is a wine bottle with a string of small white Christmas-type lights stuffed inside with the plug end outside the bottle. Then a couple of grape clusters are hung on the neck with rafia, ribbon or whatever. They made beautiful nightlights in a bathroom and are charming sitting most anywhere. I've also seen them with a colored light string and a Christmas theme on top (as opposed to a grape cluster). Also I saw one this week with a small hole drilled towards the bottom of the bottle where the lights were inserted so the plug-end was neatly down there.

A couple years after the article Sharon posted was published. This was published. I can’t link to it since I am searching for these articles through my workplace at Caltech, and you would get a broken link, but here is abstract copied below. It seems that an important consideration for a banker plant used to host the predator mites is “tuft domatia”, which are little chambers on the leaves that are meant to house the beneficials. The plants provide little hidey-houses along with pollen :-) The predator mite Amblyseius swirskii is an omnivore, eating both pollen and other mites, thrips, whitefly etc. Selecting an ornamental pepper banker plant for Amblyseius swirskii in floriculture crops. By: Avery, PB et al. Abstract: Preference of phytoseiid mite, Amblyseius swirskii (Athias-Henriot) was assessed on four cultivars of ornamental pepper banker plant candidates; Red Missile (RM), Masquerade (MA), Explosive Ember (EE) and Black Pearl (BP) for potential control of pestiferous insects in floriculture. Significant differences in cultivar preference by A. swirskii was observed in choice experiments whether the test was pre- (with pollen) or during bloom. Overall, female mites laid more eggs when pollen was provided as a food source. The number of tuft domatia per cultivar leaf appeared to positively influence host preference in the choice plant tests pre-bloom. In addition, cultivar RM had the highest mean number +/- A SEM of tuft domatia per leaf (5.1 +/- A 0.3) and motiles per plant (4.0 +/- A 1.2), followed by MA, EE and BP. In choice tests on blooming plants, A. swirskii showed preference for both cultivars RM and MA compared to EE. These experiments indicated that the number of tuft domatia and availability of pollen can influence the host preference of A. swirskii for an ornamental pepper banker plant cultivar. Results from this study will help growers, researchers, educators and extension personnel in understanding the plant phenology promoting adoption of suitable banker plants for managing greenhouse and landscape insect pests.