Thanks Henry. With so much prey to feast on hopefully beneficial insects, "the friendlies" will increase enough in the open landscape to keep chilli thrips under control. Perhaps this is happening in Florida as I read some reports on the Florida Forum that folks had had chilli thrips in the past, but then the infestation abated. A friend wrote this on the Texas Forum: "I was living in Hawaii when whiteflies first made their appearance. It was an ugly thing. Their population exploded exponentially. Their were so many whiteflies that our ceilings were coated in them. They were absolutely everywhere. They smothered a lot of leaves in sheltered areas even though we had significant ocean breeze. It was disgusting.It took about 6 months and then they had a population implosion and it attained a balance. One never saw them. Perhaps bugs and geckos had learned to eat them. I don't know what happened. I hope some natural enemy to chilli thrips comes forth and something like this happens." Now I'm find chilli thrips are on several other plants in the garden. After seeing suspicious leaves I've ID'd them on Coral vine, Henry Duelberg salvia and Texas smoke tree by tapping the affected leaf and looking at the tiny yellow dots moving around with a 10 power jewelers loop. And I do mean tiny. They are less than the size of a period and barely visible in bright light on white paper with my reading glasses on. They are much smaller than flower thips, and looked just like the photos. Also several pale colored tiny spiders quickly scurried off the paper. They were just a little larger than the chilli thrips. Hopefully they were eating them. This makes one reluctant to spray even with spinosad, but knocking them back before winter may significantly reduced their population next summer. I don't know. Right now I'm trying to reduce the number of the most susceptible plants.

I am a plumeria grower and I live in Alice. I purchased 1 each of several colors a number of years ago and then did a swap for 2 unknowns; I've been hooked ever since. When I was on Kauai a few years ago I collected quite a few sticks from around the island and brought them home with me. I've also gotten quite a few cuttings from a lady on O'Ahu who has a Yahoo group. She collects cuttings from around the island then sends them to group members who pay the S&H costs. I also got several plants from Tally today at the SA plant swap. I have none that are named varieties, or at least I don't know that I do. I'm not really worried about names as much as I am about beauty and variety. At present I have 16 semi-grown plumies (4-6' tall), the 3 plants I got today and 5 large rooted cuttings. Not a huge collection, but I'm just getting started. ;-)

Kathy do you remember how I almost got arrested, getting those cuttings for that gal in Dallas? I still can't belive I did that. The thread asked for anyone in San Antonio area, begging them to take cutting from the rose, because it was going to be destroyed, by construction the next week. I went down after work, started cutting from the sidewalk. The owner came out and asked me what I was doing?I think I almost fainted. The lady from Dallas drove down, but had an emergency. She had to leave before I got off work, so she never got all those cuttings. I never wanted the Rose, I was just trying to help. That was the day I became a Rose Rustler. The owner of the Rose Emporium, worked where I did, and he really wanted that rose, but I never got back with him. Barbra

San, SIL just started working this January at the bank and is only working part time as it is. She had been working 2 other jobs all part time in addition to this one so I know she is exhausted. Good news is that baby and mommy get to go home today already. I bet they are ready for the time to be out of the hospital. I just hope that someone can stay and help out for awhile. My mom stayed with my sis and I with our 2 c=sections each for about a month. And let me tell you that was heaven.(don't ask Dan what he thought of it:) But since she is a daughter in law she is afraid to offer to stay.She offered to stay in the hospital overnight to change diapers, and give a pacifier or sugar water to hold out feedings a little bit ( I know it was great when she did this for me) but my SIL promptly announced that she would figure it out and handle everything on her own. I know that when I came home mom was there to help, added to that with Hayden I had 6 weeks bed rest and a 2 and 4 year old that wanted to help) But I cried like a baby when it was time for her to go home. It was so nice having another adult there. My brother works Construction and works 60 hour weeks so won't be able to be at home. And now my sil's mom who was going to stay and help will be flying home on Monday leaving Becky at home alone with the baby, her first and she reaaly doesn't have a clue, not ever being one to be around babiies at all. Just knowing the maternal instict will pop up and help matters out. Stacie