For tenacious vines I have been successful with Round Up. Put a little extra strength RU into a bud vase. Put the vase in the yard next to the vine and stick one or two strands of the weed into the RU in the vase. Let it sit for a few weeks. It seems to not be working at all and then, SUDDENLY, the entire vine is dead everywhere. My vine problem is bind weed. It died up to 30 feet away from the plant I thought I was killing.

Noticed the powdery white bugs on a minirose in a planter here yesterday. We call them leafhoppers but don't recall which one as there are many types. The larger mobile ones hop quickly & can fly short distances at certain stages.They tend their brood in the white stuff. Agree with simply wiping them off with fingers, gloved or not (which catches the hoppers off guard), followed by the cold water hose to remove the remainder of white stuff (which is slightly sticky). Find a preliminary treatment with the hose watering wand set to "mist" weighs down the hoppers so they don't jump away. Follow that up with a medium-strong spray, not so strong that you beat the leaves up. The cold water stuns as well as removes them.They seem to only show up in the heat here. Never needed to do more than repeat this daily for a few days till they disappear entirely. Very effective & harmless to all but the target. Some of the scariest-looking bugs are actually the most beneficial & eat the harmful ones for supper.Tend to treat them all as friends & neighbors unless proven otherwise - definitely a "mini-ecosystem" going on here achieving balance on its own. The hornworm spied on the tomato yesterday will become a hummingbird moth & we'll still have tomatoes to feed us, too. The caterpillars that munch the passionflower leaves turn into butterflies floating amongst the flowers while the aphids feed the ladybugs. Without the rich web of life the plants would never be a garden & we wouldn't even enjoy the plants themselves without the pollinators. All have their place in the dance. When I sit on the porch steps as day turns to twilight, the porch frog wakes to sit beside me & the enormous praying mantis we've known since she was tiny climbs down the passionflower vine for a lower perch to join us. We watch as the daytimers settle down & the nightlife starts to play. Silly as it may seem, we enjoy each other's company. I consider them "people", but then I do that with everyone. So much richer for knowing them. Curious to find out what those eggs become - please let us know. And remember, the garden is also for savoring. This post was edited by vasue on Thu, Aug 1, 13 at 7:58

I'm further into the tropics than you but I think the same will apply for growing the Bat Plant. I had mine where it got quite a lot of sun at different times during the day. There was incomplete tree cover. The plant was stressed most of the time. So I moved it into filtered sun, probably the equivalemt of 30 to 40% shade cloth, and the plant really improved. I don't think it would like heavy shade.

We all have that special plant we're attached to. Mine is the CB. I grew up with parents that love gardening and have always had beautiful, perfectly manicured gardens. As a kid I had no interest but I obviously picked up a lot of how-to's by osmosis :) What turned the tide for me was one trip to the tea gardens here in town 15 years ago and I saw the CB. The flower fascinated me and I just had to figure out what it was. That is what lit my fuse so to speak. When my parents moved back here last year, what do I get them? A CB of course! A bit overprotective I think. Anyway, from now on, starting in early spring I'll start watching the leaves like a hawk looking for eggs and any signs of little brown entry holes. I know they didn't overwinter in the stems because it all died back with the freeze and I had removed them all. The interesting thing is every single problem spot is at the tip of the stem, right before or just after the last full leaf, even on long 6' branches. I think I'll hatch some praying mantises as well. Won't my wife love that! Honestly it helps just knowing about them and knowing to keep an eye on it more. I guess things are never a problem until they're a problem eh.