I thought I'd have a tough time with keeping the mint indoors but figured I'd give it a shot, as I love tea and like to steep some spearmint leaves with it. when I 1st got the mint (which was kept outdoors at the store), I tried replicating the environment it was used to. I'd put the plant outside during the day, only to find it severely wilted within an hour. it was a strange and unforseen side effect. either the temperature was too high or the sun was too strong, although it did the same when placed in a shaded area as well. so, it's remained indoors ever since. it's looking awful, I'm positive I killed it by the way I cleaned it the other night, I have to figure out how to do that correctly! I was fortunate to have found the cococoir- it was the only bag in the store and I've never seen another one since, even though I went to several different shops, so now I'm stingy about who gets it! what do you think of bottom watering? I have everything from African violets to Chinese evergreens to succulents to rosemary to fittonia, etc. when I water one of my basils from the bottom (via one of those "self watering" pots), it not only does very well but the top of the soil is barely even damp. from my limited experience, I could be wrong in thinking this is a good thing, but it seems like it is- as I said, the Basil seems to be doing great, and I'd assume there's less of a risk of infestation when the top of the soil isn't wet right after watering. I dont know what it is, but every single plant I have remains very wet for awhile after watering, even the ones with tons of perlite in the mixture. I watered my begonia over a week ago and the top of the soil is still extremely damp, I feel like it's very unnatural to have them remain in this condition for so long. I'm just not sure what to do about it, do you have any advice on that? (oh, and I also keep a small fan running on one window full of plants for the entire day, then switch it to the other window of plants at night. I thought that would help them dry a bit & also help with air circulation, but it doesn't seem to help with drying, at all) thank you!

bmh, I would not use oils during the hot summer months. If you cannot obtain control with pyrethrin, I would spray with Orthene. Orthene is unbelievably effective against scale. please note however it will also kill beneficial insects, so try to limit the spray just to the infested bush and avoid spraying surrounding areas. left untreated, scale can and will multiply and suck the life right out of your plant.

These grubs in San Diego or other parts of S. California are almost always Green Fig beetle larva (Cotinis mutabilis) not june beetle larva (but they are related). The larva love to eat compost, the bugs are huge and eat decaying fruit but I haven't seen them cause damage to fruit or plants. However, we are having a problem in that we mulched and composted over our front lawn to convert to vegetable garden & orchard, and included some uncomposted coffee grounds and tea from cafes. Now we have grubs and then we have raccoons coming at night to dig up the grubs, and they frequently dig out plant starts and tear up newly seeded beds. Ugh.

Does it look like this? We have these bugs in Idaho too, but this photo is from Wisconsin. These are adults which come into houses for the winter. They are harmless. During the spring and summer they and their young, which are called nymphs, feed on developing conifer cones. Here is a link that might be useful: Western conifer seed bug