Moni, I had a lot of fungus gnats in my garden and did a little research on them. I expect your soil is too wet and the larva are hatching out now. I think the best thing may be to let the soil dry fairly well before you water again. The larvae don't live in dry soil, so that will break their life cycle. as far as what to spray inside someone else should tell you that. I sprayed some of DW's plant spray on the plants that we brought in, but some people don't like to spray inside. The larvae I dug out of the ground died In about 3 min. of strong sunshine, but I doubt you could heat and UV rays from an inside light to kill them, they pretty much have to die from dehydration. (They are very small and hard to see).From what I have read they are not harmful to humans, other than driving you crazy swatting at them. Larry

I am just a hobbyist with but one boug, but FWIW, I disagree with the repotting information in the link above. "I do not recommend root pruning when you repot your bougainvillea - in fact, disturb the roots as little as possible because the plant might go into shock and take weeks to recover. For this reason, you should always pot into a larger container than the old one." I have a Boug that I brought inside for a few years until I built my GH. Now it goes in the GH in the winter. It has taken all kinds of abuse...pruning, variable watering...finally the 24" clay pot was too big and too heavy, so I did a little experiment...and I did everything he says NOT to do in that link, and this plant didn't miss a beat. There is the rootball in December when I repotted. The top has been hard pruned. I downsized the pot by 2 inches by shaving off about 2 inches of the rootball all the way around. The plant grew and bloomed all winter without missing a beat. You read this Boug "fragile root system" business all the time, but my experience just doesn't support that. Also, he recommends a peat-based soil mix, and he says you can keep them in a 1 gallon pot for three years. Peat-based mixes are fine for short term plantings, but for long-term plantings (a year or more) you need a soil mix that will retain its structure. Peat-based mixes will collapse and compact and lead to root problems. I prefer a mix using bark. A series of excellent discussions on this topic, initiated by Tapla, can be found on the Container Gardening forum. Here is a link that might be useful: Third thread in the Tapla container media series

I've always had 'found', rescued, or adopted dogs/cats. There are a lot of good, caring people out there who want to provide at risk dogs a place to be safe. The biggest problem with allowing those good hearted, well meaning folks to shelter/foster animals is that those same folks seldom get the necessary training. Fostering animals means being ready to handle all kinds of potential problems. I've rescued many dogs. Several really difficult cases. I am in awe of successful fosterers. Seriously. They take the problem dogs because they can handle the stress and disruption over and over. But, more importantly, they have the place and experience to handle those animals. I failed to rehab a dog. I paid the program $125 for the dog. I knew the potential problems. I thought I was capable. I was, but did not have the time/place for what I actually got. It cost me several hundred dollars in damages(to my stuff and library books) before I decided to admit defeat. I have two now that have taken extensive rehab time. I now have that time(retired) and space. I rehabbed an extremely aggressive dog and the most pathetic excuse for an insecure dog I have ever seen. I could not foster. Too difficult. So, for those who try---GOOD FOR YOU!!!!! But, be aware most shelters do not have any idea of the real problems animals will exhibit in a home environment. And be aware that even when secure, well balanced pets at home, bringing in another animal will require some extensive adapting time. And, do not feel a failure when you cannmot succeed. Most times it is not the fostering person's fault.

Melissa, It is easy to forget bulbs in the fall. I do it all the time. This year I actually remembered. Sometimes by the time I think of them, it's just too late. For the gladiolas you want to move, I think fall is a good time. Just be sure to mulch them well after you move them, and no, I don't blame you for wanting to move them from the present location! Macarame' is easy and it is fun. We had a cool art teacher in 8th grade who let us work on artwork that was sort of trendy for the times (late 1960/early 1970s) so we got to learn macarame' (so easy a caveman could do it), beading (with tiny love beads), batik (which I loved!), pottery and tie-dying, among other things. It was so much fun and such a change from the standard art projects done at the time. Camo in the living room? Hey, deer season is opening, and you are right on trend. : ) It can get old to paint swatches on the wall and stare at them in all kinds of light as you decide what you want, but it sure beats painting a room a color you're sure you'll all love, only to discover that once it is on the walls and has dried, it doesn't look at all the way you thought it would. It is so much easier to paint over a few swatches than to repaint a room. Removing old flooring is my least favorite thing, especially if you're removing a tile floor and the backer board beneath it, but once the new flooring is in, it is such a monumental change. We did the laundry room and kitchen floor at the same time in a wood-look plank tile back in October. It looks great. I was hoping we'd be working on the breakfast room and living room floors by now, but it is looking like we won't even start them until after Christmas. I'm okay with that because I don't want us messing up the main living area during the holidays. Tim has either 2 or 3 trips scheduled for December and then, he swears, his travel is over for the year. Ha ha ha. Only because the old year is ending. I think early January might be a good time to start on the breakfast room and living room floors, but we'll see. He may come home any day now with a list of scheduled trips for January. I hope not. I think he has to stick close to home in Jan-Mar 2017 because his boss will be away at a 3-month-long course at the FBI Academy, and they usually both are not gone at once that often. Tim's traveled more in the last year than he did in the first 34 years of his career in law enforcement combined and it has been crazy and very hard to keep track of which weeks he is scheduled to be gone. His long honey-do list of projects his wife wants done didn't shrink much at all this year, but we did get a lot of the kitchen and laundry room done so I'll cut him some slack on the rest of it. I might drive him crazy a little because I'll take something that was in one room and repurpose it in another room. Or, I move it to the garage to wait while I am refinishing it or painting it so it can be repurposed in another room. So, our decor changes a bit but sometimes it is just that I am moving some things around to get a different look. The garage is full of works-in-progress. You're supposed to be able to park the vehicles in the garage, right? Well, at our house, that's not happening right now. Jen, Waiting to paint to your own taste when you get into a more permanent home is probably smart. If you followed your heart now and painted each room a different color, the first thing your real estate agent would tell you when it is time to sell is that you need to paint everything a neutral color again, and that would be a lot of repainting to do in just a few years when y'all are ready to buy your place in the country. I think I could live in neutral rooms for 5 years, knowing that when I got to my country home, I could paint whatever colors I wanted. You know, when we moved here in 1999, each room (except the breakfast room and living room which adjoin and were painted the same) was painted a different color. I loved it. However, all these years later, now I'm painting everything quieter, more neutral colors. I've finally gotten tired of all the bright walls. Change is good, though, so I'm just trying to enjoy the process as we go along. If the neutral colors make you crazy, you can brighten up the rooms with plants (lol), artwork, blankets or throws, painted baskets, etc. That is the one advantage of neutral walls---you can bring in color in many other ways and the colors won't clash with your neutral walls. It is sort of the same as in the garden, where our garden neutrals are the shades of brown (soil, mulch, wood, etc.) and we bring in colors via foliage and flower colors. About 10 years ago, my cousin and her family begin plotting their move to the country. It involved three families selling their city homes and buying one big piece of land in the country where they could put three houses close to one another, but not too close. I believe they bought 15 acres. For three years, my cousin had a vision in her head of what their home would look like when they moved to the country. She spent those three years buying the furniture they'd have in the new house, drapes, artwork, accessories, etc. By the time they moved she had a huge stockpile of boxes of new stuff for the new house, and because she planned it all along, it coordinated from room to room in a manner that pleased her greatly. Because she accumulated it over time, antiques were a part of the mix, so her new place instantly had a 'collected over time' look once they finally were able to move. When the house was ready, they moved in and she had it all decorated in absolutely no time at all. I was amazed at how quickly she got everything unpacked, in place and looking like home. When we walked in the door the first time, it didn't look like a brand new house---it looked like a perfectly loved, well-decorated, collected home. It was awesome. I loved that it looked so flawless without looking like a display from a furniture store (not that there's anything wrong with furniture store displays). Jen, I believe there's worse hobbies than gardening for a man to put up with. Sometimes when Tim is looking at all the space my gardening stuff occupies (you know, fenced garden plots in the yard, the potting shed, the greenhouse, the space in the garage devoted to storing garden tools and stuff, the plants in the mudroom, the seed-starting shelves in the weight room, the pile of garden catalogs on the coffee table, and on the nightstand upstairs, etc.), he gets a pained expression on his face. I can read his mind. He's thinking there sure is a lot of space devoted to gardening and all the stuff that goes along with it. I just sweetly remind him that at least he isn't married to a woman who collects expensive handbags or dozens of pairs of shoes and boots or fur coats or expensive jewelry. Everybody has 'stuff'. It is just that we gardeners have gardening stuff instead of some other kind of stuff. Oh, and there's the other stuff I didn't mention---food processing gear for our home-grown food, vases for bouquets of flowers, and watering cans stashed everywhere so one is always within easy reach. Hmmm. That's a lot of stuff, isn't it? Dawn