allye, as I mentioned several years ago on this topic, once you go fully organic there should be a resurgence of predators that will take care of the bugs and bring everything into balance. As long as the bugs are not poisoned they should be attractive to birds, lizards, toads, and geckos. Sometimes a bird bath or bird feeder is the best way to control garden insects. I don't think changing the soil mix would be effective. If you have a wooden barrel, it could the the wood lice are there to feed on the decaying barrel. There is a lot of good information in your link. It does make the following statement which struck me wrong, "Unfortunately, the thick mulching and heavy compost use associated with good organic gardening provides Wood Lice with perfect conditions!" I guess I disagree that good organic gardening would necessarily require compost and thick heavy mulching. Guess it depends on what you're doing, but non organic gardeners might do the same things and organic gardens might not. In any case this is a nit and may be my personal peeve. Certainly if you are still following Rodale's guidance from the 1930s, then compost is king. But if you've modernized to the 1990s, then it's not of much importance at all.

ramazz, no it wasn't yours but that one is sure pretty, very unusual. It was a photo by the side of a house with two large patches of PS and some other flower. They weren't exactly like my photo either as to double. Kind of a double decker effect except the top part was the same size as the bottom. That's how I remember it anyway, and often my memory plays tricks on me. If I can find that thread again, I'll link to it, too far back now. token, one person's trash is another's treasure. I know photos can only show us so much, but I find yours rather interesting, not that I'd run right out and grow it. Expecting something different may skew your perception of it, but I'd let it grow another year and see what it is like. I think it's kind of pretty actually, certainly different. Nice assortment of flowers and plants in your photo. But if you have your heart set on a nice cherry brandy, I'd hope to get some seeds from posters who have the prettiest ones or just try something else. But before you shovel prune it, maybe somebody on freecycle would want it or gasp, somebody here might want some seeds from it. Or a plant hybridizer. Look at what you've got, something truly unique even though not to your liking. If it were crossed with other ones, it could lead to some stunning new Rudbeckia. A grower might even be interested in it. I don't know if white has even shown up in Rudbeckias before or not, and the potential for crosses, good bad and ugly are endless.

I agree with the majority, the little beasties are a true pest! I always thought they were the workhorse of nature and that their good out-weighed the bad but no more! I have great soil and mulch with different kinds of things, pine needles, bark mulch and straw from my chickens. They have multiplied into the thousands. The last 2 years they have eaten off the sprouts of my Angel Trumpets so bad that they have failed to bloom for the last two years. They are in the dead stems from the previous years growth. I can't eliminate them unless I dig up the plant and cut away those stems. It is not happening because the clumps are very large and I worked hard to get them established. They are also in the hostas and in my tomatoes. They get in every house plant that I put out over the summer and I have to repot everything every year or lose them over the winter because the little turds eat the roots and leaves of my house plants. I am ready to use whatever I have to do to eliminate them. I have plenty of birds and toads, frogs and parasitic bugs in my garden, I encourage spiders and all other good bugs and even my chickens will not eat them. I tried and suffered the damage from my chickens in the hopes that they would eliminate the little buggers. Spinosad is a natural organic method of killing pests the same as Bt has been used to eliminate cabbage worms. It is also the ingredient in Comfortis that I give my dogs for flea control. I will try the beer but if it dosen't work I am going to bring out the big guns!!!

I had the cold/cough junk for about 2 months. It is something that just has to run it's course I think. I was never in bed sick, but once in awhile I would lay down and doze off. Of course trying to sleep at night was a near impossibility because of the coughing. I chuckled to myself cuz I thought the recycling people must of thought I was brewing up some kind of new street drug with all the empty cold remedy bottles that went out!! But I took generic dayquil and nitequil as that was the only thing that would help me sleep at night. But for the longest time, sleep was only about 4 hours at a time because of the cough. I also used Mucinex. For me it seemed to take a couple of days to start working but once it did, everyday I seemed to feel better than I did the day before. I got over it really well and then all of a sudden my allergies kicked in, that lasted about a week, so now I have a remnant cough left over from that!!! GRRRRRR.... Get to feeling better everyone.....