Others will certainly chime in with good advice for you, but I'd say first off to stop spraying. Getting your plants wet every day can do more damage than any pests you might end up with. (can invite mildews to infect the leaves) Just let things grow and see if anything starts eating them faster than you can. Hand picking is the most effective way to deal with a lot of pests. (the larger ones -- not aphids) If you do end up with aphids on your plants doing damage, then folks usually recommend spraying them off with a garden hose every so often. I find that just leaving things alone for the most part, hand picking the bigger bugs when I feel like it (be sure it's a pest and not a beneficial!!) and being willing to soak my broccoli in salt water before eating it (to drive out the cabbage worms), I never have to spray with anything. Your garden looks gorgeous, by the way!! Especially since mine in under a LOT of snow :)

Thank you Zsolt! Very enjoyable to see these pics!

You can look at mini gardens in two ways: First, what I feel is a miniature of a LARGE garden, like the bonsai, make a small garden structure, get a small tree=like shrub, and have the hosta stand in for the bigger plantings if it was normal size. Like get a bird house shaped like a real house for the garden structure. Make a tiny hammock, hang it from appropriately sized arbor for viewing only. Even looking at my real hammock gives me a peaceful feeling--highly recommend looking at a hammock to relax. :) The other approach is to simply feature them as a collection of small plants, exquisitely displayed, have a nice Zen style background. I'm thinking miniaturize Babkas Barcalounger arrangement. I fyou have a child with an angel garden, this could also be a fantasy place, a secret garden, like that of The Happy Hunter I so thoroughly put foot in mouth mentioning.

Hi Everyone, I hope u all had a nice Mother's Day! Son and family came over here on Sunday and we had a nice time. Little Rose is soooo cute and is learning new words every day, I love having her around, she sure livens up the place. *S* While Rosie and her mom had a nap son and I went out and worked in the garden. It is so hard to get him over here that I take advantage when he is able to come over. Monday was a special pick up garbage day and we could throw everything out but cars and tires. So that meant a lot of clean was done in the yard. We pruned down a lot of branches off the Shurbert cherry tree and found out that it has some kind of disease. I think it is black knot, there is big black areas on different branches, that is sad and it is such a pretty tree. White flowers in spring, then the reddish leaves and red berries in the summer. We also took down some large branches on the crabapple so I could get under it to work without taking my head off. *L* Also took the wood from some of the old garden beds to the street and an old dwarf cranberry bush that I killed last year. Pulling that one out was the hardest and we had to stop after that. I will be planting hostas there after I fill up the big hole it left. Son kept telling me to go into the house, but I know it is easier with smeone helping u in the garden so I stayed out and helped him. I should of listened to him though as I have been in bed for the past two days. I thought I was doing ok, but I guess my heart and back have different ideas. I sure could do with a body replacement. *LOL* I transplanted a few tomatoes tonight into bigger containers and seeded some zucs, sunflowers and cukes. I will have to tranplant the buttercrunch lettuce tomorrow too, I'm late at getting that done. I am running out of space. I had to add another windowsill box on the north window just so I could put my tomatoes on the east window sill. I was hoping that May was going to be warm so I could start moving things into the porch, but it is 1C tonight and is suppose to be cold for the next few days. Gale, I'm glad u had a good time with the gals, but ya didn't say what kind of plants u bought... *S* I'm surprised that u still have ice and snow around your place too. I thought yours would of been gone before ours was. Does your pond have a liner in it? Or is it a natural pond? Am wondering how the fish survived in a pond with a liner? And u got tadpoles? Very kewl! My waterlilies are growing in the basement but son was too sore after pulling out that bush to put them into the pond, so they will just have to wati. I wish I could get the fish in the pond too, I am always scared I'm going to kill them if I put them in too early. Sure would make it easier having them in the pond. Gale, sounds like your greenhouse is working out great. Have u ever tried to get some old Culligan water bottles and fill those with water in the greenhouse? I bet ya they would hold in the heat well too. Hi kelly, did u buy any plants at the get together? What are SpringSow bottles? "We don't need a cart?" *LOL* Yeah right! I bet with the 3 of u, u could of used 2 carts. *L* Here are a few of my spring flowers, I hope the cold temps tonight didn't kill them. I can never remember what these are called, Star of Bethlehem pops into my head, but I don't know if that is right or not. I just think they are pretty. Lots more of the scillia have come up and they make a very pretty site too. and here are some of the marsh marigolds, they are just starting to bloom Take care Debbie :-)