Very strange here in some ways too. The lack of insects is very disconcerting. Few bees, no butterflies, no spiders, no moths at night even mosquitoes are in short supply despite all this rain. All of my containers were very slow to start flowering and I still have no buds on Four OClocks that would have been blooming weeks ago, last year. I had one flush of bloom on Shastas and nothing more since. Tuberous begonias are very small with few blooms this year. Heliotrope has had one bud on it. Tomatoes, that I got in late, but even so, they have hardly grown at all.

I wonder if we have had a lot less sun this year due to all the rain and cloudy overcast conditions? Doesn't explain the lack of bugs though.

pm2

The insects are in my garden in lexington. I walked into the center of my very thick garden, and the baby mosquitoes swarmed up on me. Thousands of honey bees (remember I have a beehive) but many bumbles, small wasps, and 5 kinds of butterflies, including a hummingbird moth with a frequent flier card. No hummers at all. Overall, the flower production has been stellar

The tomatoes are another story, but I know flower and fruit production are related to hot days.

So it has been a different year in my garden, but better than average. I do attribute that to the bee colony.

Marie

I agree. A very odd year. I have very leggy dahlias with only one bloom. Hydrangea is almost done. Tomato plants are about 6-7 feet tall (!) with lots of green tomatoes. They just don't want to ripen. Everything is pretty much bigger than normal but less prolific flower-wise.

It appears that it's been a very strange growing season all over the country.
My hydrangeas are spectacular this year, still in full bloom, but they started blooming in early July instead of the end of July. Not only that, but they are still producing new buds that are flowering as well.!!!!!!!

My toms are all in huge pots that hold 1 1/4 cubic feet of soil. Filled them with just miracle grow potting mix and got the toms planted in mid June. The plants are huge and full or toms, but toms not as large as they where at this time last year.

The plants that I would expect to be doing really well, like portulaca are only so, so in some beds, good in others. Some zinnias are doing wonderful, like old mexico and zowie flame and no rust on them. Others right next to them are just puny little things or full of rust.

Morning glory vines that should have been well blooming by now are just getting buds, but the Japanese ones that bloom later, well some of them have been blooming for weeks and started blooming on 6 inch vines!!!!

I thought 2 of my hardy hibiscus had not made it through the winter, they are usually 3-4 feet tall by now with buds. Well low and behold they just decided to say "hello" this past week, but my disco belle has been doing well.

Daylilies have never been as good as this year and still going fairly strong now.

All the dwarf dahlias started from seed and in pots are all in bloom, the petunias from seed have been blooming for weeks, the alyssum are perfect and the supposed petunia seeds from a trade turned out to be non scented nicotiana. A pleasant surprise.

My candylily has tripled in size from last year and blooming about 3 weeks earlier than last year and my foxglove where huge and beautiful and had several stems with each plant. Second year blooming, started from seed and the new seedlings that I WS have more than tripled in size since planting them out in June.

The cosmos are huge in thick stems and just full of branches and blooms. Not what I would expect from plants that, once established for the season, require little water and they have been drowned in it this year.

The 4'oclocks in the ground aren't much bigger than the day they went in in mid June, but the ones in pots are huge and starting to bloom.

But, the sunflowers are just creeping along in growth, the ones that the critters haven't eaten, the violas keep taking a hit from something eating them and not sure if it's critters or what. They look like they where just hacked off with a pair of strong hand with clippers in it. The salvia cherry blossom looks like I just planted the seedling, the lychnis vesuvious should be blooming and huge. Second year in perennial and it isn't any bigger than it was a month ago. The hardy hibiscus seedlings are about an inch taller than the day they where planted, My nicandra splash of cream is about 1/4 the size it was at this time last year and my hardy asters are just barely there this year.
All the annual poppies bit the dust with that early spring burst of super hot days and humidity. Not something poppies like and the hardy oriental poppy seedlings that got in the ground made it to about 3 inches tall and they where gone too. I'm hoping those will come back in the spring as a good size plant and bloom and just went by at the right time.

What I do have is an over abundance of weeds. A bumper crop of them like I've never seen before. Maybe it just seems that way because I can't weed them out this year and have to rely of hubby and others to do it for me.

I have an abundance of mosquitos too. Trust me, they are nasty out there and got me last night in about 10 places while trying to get a good pic of the 4 o'clock blooms.
An the lawn is growing like a weed too. Can't mow that either and every time hubby is available to do it, all we have is rain, thunderstorms and wet, wet lawn.
Have had tons and tons of butterflies too, not sure what kind and just can't move fast enough to try and get some pics. The old spine is still recovering from surgery last month.
What I haven't seen is any monarchs. Before we had the beginning of those terrible severe thunderstorms almost every day, I had about 10 monarch cats on a self sown milkweed plant. After the first round of storms they where gone and haven't seen them since.

And OMG, for the first time in 28 years gardening here, I saw my first hummingbird. A tiny little green one going from one cosmos to another. My beds are full of flowers for them, just never saw one before and couldn't get there in time for a pic.

Have had lots of bumble bees, wasps, hornets, and a few traveling honeybees as well. Not sure where the honey bees are traveling from, but there are some bee keepers in town, not near me though.

Have a huge family of hawks living at the edge of the woods which is keeping the rodent population way down this year, but we have lots of groundhogs through out the neighborhood that are doing lots of damage to the gardens.

At night we have the nightly deer visitors eating the yews and rhodies, along with skunks and a few racoons. Pheasants are in my woods in the back of the house and they pay a daily visit as well.

No turkeys though and that suits me fine. One year of them in my yard day and night was more than enough. They where nasty and extremely bold, ate all the berries and then went after the plants and where more than willing to attack us when they felt like it. My daughter lost a clump of hair to one while trying to pick tomatoes for me and the next door neighbor's little boy got his hand broken by the beak of one while helping her.

PM2, it has to be that we have had far less sun in July, we've had more rain in my area than we have since the 1920's.

Plants need warmth, water and sun to grow well and they need it in a nice combination of all 3. All that we really got in July was horrible heat and humidity and inch after inch after inch of rain. They need the sun too.

Fran

its interesting that your daylillies are going strong, fran. 'cause i'm in the same area and while i've got a much larger clump of them this year than in the past, mine are actually starting to fade out.

the only place in my garden where i've FINALLY seen some honeybee's are on my minature sunflowers. they seem to LOVE those.

Well, hearing that Lexington and Billerica are not showing problems with butterlies etc, it is making me curious about whether there is actually something town related going on. I looked at the town website and the chemical program that they use for mosquitoes is actually high risk for fish and for other invertebrates, especially the night flying insects.

So, I have a call in to the town. I am wondering if they overdid it this year or what?? I know the West Nile Virus has been a big concern, but I thought last year it was as well and I didn't have this problem.

We are enjoying the low mosquitoe activity but not if it is harming everything else? They say it is low risk to bees because they spray at night when they are not flying. Hmmmm...

I know there are fewer bees this year of all kinds...only a couple of berries are developing on each cluster on my Viburnums. Which I always thought could be bee activity.

Do any of you have mosquitoe programs in your town?

pm2

Ponce,
It depends on the type of daylilies that you have. There are different types to grow up here. Early bloomers, mid season bloomers, late season bloomers and ones that are rebloomers and will continue to bloom till the frost gets them.
I have a mix of all 4 kinds so my bed is well blooming most of the season and some of of my mid season bloomers had such heavy bud count this year that they are still full of blooms. Some of them had well over a hundred buds.

PM2,
Billerica always has mosquito control with central mosquito spraying and with the Concord River and Shawsheen going through town, they use larvecsides in the water early in the season.

It is true that the stuff that is sprayed right from late dusk on isn't a problem of the bees, butterflies birds etc. . That is if they use the same stuff as the central mosquito control does.
Also, the pesticide used is a contact pesticide. In other words, if the truck comes down your street and sprays the front of your yard, anything that flies into it will be killed, but anything that doesn't is fine and it has to reach the back of your house or the side to be effective to anything back there or the sides etc.
It does only last about 2 hours in the air as well before it it dicipates and is gone.

It really is a temporary fix and doesn't do much good at all.

Around here, the trucks start around 7:30-8PM and do a certain area of town at a time. They are done by no later than 9pm.
Stuff is not that pleasant to smell, so if they are coming around I keep the doors and windows closed for several hours after they are done.

From experience, I can tell you that it's very helpful at 1AM coming home and there are no mosquitos out front, BUT, next morning, those that where in the back have come to the front and there are just as many as before they sprayed.

I do know that with, at least with Central Mosquito Control, you can contact them and they will put you on the DO NOT SPRAY LIST, and they will let you know when they are going to spray and will not spray your side of the road in front of your house, but they will spray on either side of the house.

In between all the rain and storms we have had, they have sprayed my section of town twice in July and it has made no difference to the birds, bees, butterflies in the yard.

Fran

I'm glad you started this thread, because I was starting to despair. My new main bed, right outside the back door and flanking the patio - where we sit all the time - looks so crowded that I was thinking I must have really miscalculated the spacing of all the plants. The lavender hedge is just about completely engulfed by a row of Sweet Dreams coreopsis, the salvia is overrunning the tree peonies, and I've had to cut back the nepeta twice already to keep it from running rampant over half the patio. There's a fair amount of compost in this bed, but everything seems to be about twice the size I expected.

Now I'm thinking it might just be a fluke of nature, and that things will be more "normal sized" next year. I sure hope so, because I'm running out of lawn to dig up, and even though I like a full look, this is ridiculous - it's so jam packed, it looks like it's been abandonded.

Oh, and the bugs are here, plenty of mosquitos (possibly thanks to my neighbor, who has dozens of buckets sitting out full of rainwater).

> they have sprayed my section of town twice in July and it has made no difference to the birds, bees, butterflies in the yard.

The damage from these sprays is not something you see immediately, the effects are cumulative. Unless they're using BT, the birds WILL be effected in one way or another. There is a lot of evidence regarding long term, low level exposure to these chemicals. I know that mosquitoes can carry lethal diseases, but we still need to consider both sides of the insecticide question, and make sure our towns are using the least toxic substances available, and applying them responsibly.

They have been srpaying my town, including my street for the past 29 years that we have lived here. I haven't seen any problem with birds in all those years.

My gardens are constantly full of robins, sparrows, blue jays, cardinals, goldfinch, crows, morning doves, an occasional chickadee. We now have "resident" red tail hawks living at the edge of the woods in the back yard with quite a huge number of offspring and other birds that I can not identify.
An this past week, for the first time in 28 years, I saw my first green humingbird.

I am far from a fan of pesticides, I don't use any in my gardens or my yard, except for poison ivy, but, there is a very serious concern with disease that mosquitos can and do carry.

Unless you know someone personally or someone in your family has been directly affect by or with West Nile Virus or EEE, it may be hard to understand why some people, including myself will be in favor of pesticide control for mosquitos and not think first about both sides of the insecticide question.

I lost a close friend many years ago to EEE, and my husband lost a co-worker to West Nile Virus, just a few years ago.

Fran

For me it has been a spectacular gardening year. There have been a few disasters - raging fungus in the Spring (soooo dry here), some bugs eating at roots, a little Beetle and storm damage. But most everything is growing great, and the winter-sown seedlings are a smashing success. I have noticed that things are blooming earlier than last year.

There are TONS of critters in the yard, many more than any previous year. There have been lots of Bees of assorted shapes and sizes, honeybees included, many species of Butterflies, moths, Hummingbirds, dragon flies, and lots of interesting insects. I've even seen tree frogs on more than one occasion and this is an upland lot! I've found the skin of a couple Cicadas, have seen up to 4 Hummingbird moths at one time on the Monarda, and 3 Hummingbirds at one time too (2 females fighting over the Lobelia cardinalis, and a male that swooped into the middle of the fracas). And of course, lots of birds. This summer, there have been so many fledglings in the yard, it's like a bird nursery here!

Our town does not have a spray program, this is semi-rural area, I live near farms with lots of flowers, and many of the neighbors have gardens or feeders. All of this no doubt supports the local wildlife populations.

Personally, I am deadset against blanket spraying programs - even if they spray at night, and avoid the bees, there are many night-fliers that will be poisoned. So a relatively very few people MIGHT contract a rare disease that is carried by mosquitoes, vs. blanket poisoning of our environment with largely unknown consequences. How many HUNDREDS of thousands die from heart disease, smoking, and obesity? All well-understood and manageable diseases to a great extent. Another 40,000 die from car accidents. We ignore the likely risks in our lives, and worry about risks that are extremely unlikely. Irrational, IMO.

Yes...a strange year particularly with the constant RAINS here around the north shore! But overall I'd have to say although some things are a bit "sun denied" most everything is looking great.

Very, VERY few mosquitos around here although I always put on my Deet when I first step outside. Maybe it's my dunks in all my ponds and baby pools? LOL

Bees of all types are in abundance, hummingbirds were everywhere until all these storms moved in although one was hanging around my agastache this morning. Hummingbird moths, hover flies, dragonflies are all over the flowers!

I'd like to see more of the sun though....I feel like we're heading straight to winter.

Cape Cod has a regionally-coordinated IPM approach to mosquito control. The CC Mosquito Control claims that they're very careful to use the least toxic chemicals and apply them appropriately - with so much water and marsh areas around, it's really amazing how few mosquitoes we have here, but even more amazing that the local governments have recognized the importance of environmental concerns, like keeping the "fish hatcheries" of the tidal marshes healthy.

Fran, believe me, I'm well aware of the reason for spraying; my father died of EEE about 15 years ago. That's probably why it irks me so much to see my neighbor leaving standing water on his property.

SUMITHRIN is the pesticide our town uses for mosquitoes. I still have no idea whether my low insect populations are due to that or not. I asked if they had done anything any different from previous years and they have not. Also, she said they test population and presence of disease before spraying. If there are low numbers of mosquitoes and no disease found then they don't spray. So it sounds like they are somewhat careful at least.

I would like to learn more about the IPM approach they use where you are dtd and I'm very sorry to hear your Dad died of EEE. I can only imagine how much that bothers you to see people being careless.

Terrene, I didn't know that Concord didn't spray at all. Do you find there are a lot of mosquitoes there? I feel exactly as you do and could not improve on the how you have presented it.

pm2

Fran...I did want to say I was also sorry to hear of the loss of your friend and DH's coworker. It must make this whole question of mosquitoe control very personal.

pm2

PM2, yes there are a lot of mosquitoes here. Especially in the back yard, I think because of all the vegetation back there. I like to garden in the evening, but I better not forget to put on repellant. When it gets really bad, I go garden in the front yard, because it's more open and windy, the mosquitoes are much less of a problem there.

I don't worry about the EEE though. I just looked at the CDC website, do you know there are only an average of FIVE confirmed cases of EEE a year in the US? More people get killed by lightning. That is not to diminish the pain and suffering of those who do get it (sorry Fran and DTD) - but it seems a bit of overkill to heavily poison our environment because of this "threat". How do we know that mosquito spraying programs haven't contributed to the incidence of cancer?

Anyway...DTD, why on earth does your neighbor have all those buckets laying around? That seems very odd.

PM2, I do take the question of mosquito control very personally. Which is why I work closely with the town board of health about the controls that are used.

Living in a town with a very high water table level, and expansive area of woodland and wetlands all around town, mosquito control is a very serious issue to address here and needs to be done carefully and with common sense approaches.
That's why the town program is a varied approach that very much depends on the conditions of the spring and summer as well as the weather and a very careful counting of the numbers and types of mosquitoes that are found during the mosquito season as well as residents reporting any and all dead birds that are found along the roads, the sports fields, their own property and any where else they are seen in town.

There are also several homes with horses and stables that are encouraged to vaccinate their horses for EEE and keep a careful watch on their horses.

Residents are encouraged to keep brush down around their properties, empty standing water around and not leave containers that can collect any water to create breeding grounds for mosquitos, advised about the times that mosquitos are most active and to where long sleeves and pants when possible outside during active mosquito times and to use deet and to rinse out any bird baths at least twice a week. They are told about repairing window screens, etc.

Mosquito control begins in early spring with wetland areas being treated for mosquito larva and then it's a wait and see as to what the next step would be.
Mosquitos are monitored and tested for the type of mosquito as only certain mosquitos carry EEE and West Nile Virus.
If those are found in town, it is reported to the state and to all residents in town, and the warning for care goes out.

The wetland areas can be treated again for larva if necessary, and if there becomes in large increase in the mosquito population that does carry west nile or EEE, another alert will go out to residents to be careful and watch for any birds that are found around town that are dead. They are asked to report it to the town or the police department. Someone from the town will then go to the location and collect the bird or birds to have them tested for disease.

It used to be that finding dead birds around was a good indicator of the presence of West Nile and EEE, especially in crows and blue jays because they had not built up a tolerance to the diseases. But in recent years, the bird die off from them has decreased quite a bit, so it is no longer used as a good indicator of disease presence.

Since the town I live in is so large and expansive, over 27 square miles, mosquito testing is done in all parts of the town and if there is a huge increase in the type of mosquito that carries West Nile and/or EEE, a great deal of discussion goes down about calling in Central Mosquito Control to do a ground spraying in the affected areas in town. The town also discusses with the State as to what their suggestions are as well.

Most times Central Mosquito will be called to do a limited spraying, especially if the weather has been such that it will greatly increase the number of new mosquitos breeding and coming into cycle.

And yes, the discussions are already taking place as this is now the prime time for the EEE and West Nile carrying mosquitos to be around and the weather in July and now early August has given them and even better breeding ground.
To my knowledge, as of this post, no mosquitos have been found in town that are carrying either West Nile or EEE, so there is a wait and see with the potential for larva treatment on the table.

As for mosquito spraying being an "overkill" one must also consider 100's of 1,000s of people that are at high risk for being the magnet for mosquito bites through no fault of their own, and they become and even greater risk of contracting West Nile and/or EEE by just going outside.

People who have an increased level of lactic acid in their bodies or who perspire a great deal are at much higher risk of being bitten, even with the use of insect repellants with DEET in them. Mosquitos are highly attracted to people with that kind of problem.

There are many medications that people take that increase their lactic acid levels including diabetics, atheletes are at higher risk because exercise increases the lactic acid in the muscles, and though it is brief that it happens, just go running and you combine the sweat and the lactic acid and they will find you, same with outdoor sports.
Those, like myself, that are recovering from spinal surgery or any kind of muscle, tendon or ligament surgery or injury have much higher levels of lactic acid in their bodies and will for quite some time after the injury and surgery.
Those that have chronic muscle problems or even joint problems also have the same kind of problem.
At the same time, it is vitally important to go outside and walk, walk, walk and post op patients can not use any kind of insect repellant for quite a few months, at least 4-6 months.

Mosquitos love me and all it takes is a couple of minutes in the shade and everyone in the area will find me and the females will be filling their tummies to go breed more to come find me.
So I have to be extremely careful where I go and when I go outside now. I won't be able to use any insect repellant before Dec. and by then I won't need it, I'll have to worry about the cold, snow and ice. That's because I had spinal surgery a few days before the end of June.

Terrene, We don't know if the mosquito spraying programs haven't contributed to the incidence of cancer? But most specialists agree that at least 50% if not more of the increase is do to earlier and earlier detection by better methods to detect cancers in the breast, colon etc. if more and more women are having mammograms then ever before, then the increase in breast cancer detection will increase and do so at an earlier time than waiting for a lump to appear and the same with those having colonoscopies and other cancer tests, hence the increase.

To try and compare the number of cases of EEE or West Nile to people getting killed by lightening is like trying to compare apples to oranges.

Used properly and appropriately and mosquito spraying is an appropriate method to attempt to reduce the risk of mosquito born illness.

If I where to pick a concern with pesticide use, it would be the indiscriminate sale and use of pesticides that the average person can buy in the local hardware store and big box stores.
That to me is a far more serious and dangerous concern than the mosquito spraying that is done in the hands of professionals that know what they are doing.

The average person has little to no knowledge of what they are doing, what they are using and how to use these pesticides and they sure don't know how to properly dispose of the containers that they come in.

Between the lawn chemicals and the insect pesticides that anyone can buy, now there is disaster waiting to happen.
There is that old belief "if a little bit is good, a lot is better" and they go crazy with the spraying and spray anything and everything for every insect that they see, grub around or who knows what else.
All of that ends up in groundwater, river and stream contamination and is a far more serious concern.

PM2, I would be looking to my neighbors for your low numbers in insects this year. If you have neighbors spraying pesticides around their yards, using chemicals on their lawns, especially if they use lawn care companies, I would suspect that is your problem and not the town mosquito spraying.

When we had our "neighbors from hell" living next door, they had to have the perfect lawn, the perfect gardens etc. They used every chemical known to man on their lawn and when that didn't give the results, they hired the chemical lawn place to do it for them. The moment they saw a bug around the as my hubby called it "the atomic bombs" came out. This one for the ants, this one for the aphids, this one for the hornets, this one for the bees. You get the picture.
I can understand the day the hubby found 5 hornet nests under the deck and using something there, but the day they went nuts over a million flies in the front yard was the day I had to say something. Very nicely I told them that the reason they had "a million flies" was because of their dog. If they cleaned up the dog messes all over the front yard, the flies would be gone.
Believe it or not, they didn't believe me and proceeded to spray all the dog mess to kill the flies on it.

That was the only time I ever saw a massive decrease in insects, birds, butterflies etc. Before they moved in, the yard was full of them and the mosquito spaying was going on.

Low and behold the "neighbors from hell" moved 3 years ago. What lovely new neighbors we have now and I mean that both as people and no poison all the time being used.
They moved in in Nov, and the following spring my yards looked normal again, full of birds, insects, butterflies etc. and yes, the mosquito spraying was going on then too.

Another thing I would be far more concerned with than mosquito spraying is where my food is coming from and the massive increase in food born bacteria that keeps being found on fruit, vegetables, meat and poultry.
That's something to worry about, far more than a city or town mosquito control spraying.

Fran