My neighbors in SOCAL were certain I was nuts when they saw me watering canned roses in the rain. They didn't understand that the leaves on the plants kept the rain water from reaching the soil in the pots. I loved that one. You should hve seen the looks on their faces. Smiles, Lyn

BT works on either type of moth, and can be applied by the homeowner to all but the tops of big trees. It's preferable to other treatments because it doesn't cause collateral damage, not even to butterfly larva, since it has to be ingested to kill (and caterpillars are selective in what kinds of leaves they eat). You just spray it on with a pressure sprayer. Those are available from the hardware store and are not expensive. Don't let a tree guy talk you out of BT; they don't like it because it has to be applied during a short time window when the larva start eating and damage is noticed. This is easy for the homeowner, but difficult for a commercial applicator who needs to treat many houses for the same pest, presumably all at the same time in any neighborhood. Treating the caterpillars on the foliage is much more effective than treating the moths themselves, since moths can fly in from all over. I've noticed that the caterpillars are still there, and look unaffected after spraying, but apparently they stop eating as soon as they've had a bite of treated foliage; it takes them up to 3 days to die, but they're not doing damage during that time.

("Are you hungry?" "I don't know. What time is it?" ;o) You sure that ain't a way to measure a horse, Dan? One hand equals 4 inches. The British still do it that way, too. I wonder what else they retain of their Imperial measurements. The US is stuck pre-revolutionary times. You'd hardly know that the USA is a free nation the way so many cling desperately to the past. And in this case, a colonial past . . . Along with Burma (reactionary people, ain't they?) and Liberia (former colony for resettling US slaves), the USA stands outside of the International System. It has gotten so we even have a tuff time talking about units of measure with the Canadians. They made the change over 35 years ago so there are plenty of adults who have had no experience with the Imperial system. The USA, on the other hand, is permanently stuck as the 13 Colonies. digitS'

It's been a little while, so I wanted to post an update. They just finished the first town home that's positioned like my home to be, and they did something totally different with the air conditioners than they're doing on the other side. They built the fence around them, so that cuts off some of the yard, but they extended the back fence out farther to make up for it, albeit with a narrower strip of land. That works fine for me, since the A/C for next door can be serviced without anyone coming into my yard. It's an odd arrangement, so I'm posting a photo to clarify. Originally the back fence was supposed to end at the back of the garage, between the tree and A/Cs. This post was edited by EmmJay on Sun, Jul 20, 14 at 10:36