Well, I noticed little brown bugs on some things on the patio, and then noticed them on a couple of brugs which just made the trip from the patio to the ground. I sprayed with the murphy oil soap / alcohol recipe and added a tablespoon of perioxide that someone else suggested. Just to be safe, I also got some bayer systemic plant food and insecticide for roses and flowering plants and applied that according to package recommendations (to be done once every 6 weeks). So far so good. I've been watching because I'm going to follow-up with more oil soap in a few more days but so far I don't see anything. I had such a hard time last summer with aphids and spider mites, I am so happy to have finally caught on to systemics! Hopefully they will work this good all summer!

datura inoxia had got to be one of the most fragrant night blooming plant I have ever had - it would just fill the whole yard with its scent, flowers are huge and the hummingbird moth just loves it. It is closely related to jimpson weed which discourages some people but my what a lovely plant.This is the one in our yard and one night it had 83 blooms on it - around 40-50 was the norm. It will self seed and is perennial for me so it should be for you also. Lynne

There is NO cure for verticillium. I wouldn't waste money on a fungicide that will have no effect.......nothing will restore a damaged vascular system. Generally, the disease is considered fatal to Japanese maples. In all my years of growing and selling J. maples, I've yet to see one that survived longterm with the disease - a few years at best and those well-established, mature trees. Typically, the decline is rather rapid. Provided the diagnosis is accurate, there is no advantage to keeping the tree and no disadvantage to removing it unless there is the possibility of root interference with the healthy/unaffected trees if they are VW susceptible species.

This post is bringing up many wonderful memories. When I was a kid, our family played Yahtzee just about every night when we were on summer vacation (it was one of the few things that brought us together.) My sister and I would quietly stay up well after bedtime to have "Spit"(the card game) tournaments (it was also a great procrastination tool to keep us from homework--which also worked in college.) Our family also played Hearts, Spades, Sorry, Big Boggle (I can no longer find this version of Boggle) and Risk (there were always a lot of hurt feelings with this game.) When I was 16 I went on a bike trip across Maine with two older sisters--we brought a word dice game called Perquacky and played it in the camping area rest rooms (where there was light) at night (I think we only played if there was some sort of vanity shelf or large sink area. I hope we didn't sit on the floor.) Many of us got together this summer for vacation and we had fun with Texas Hold 'Em. My parents and a couple of my sisters really enjoy(ed) bridge. The games I've enjoyed playing with my kids are Scrabble, Cribbage (a favorite for my daughter and I when we are on vacation--we keep score with pencil and paper rather than a board), Sequence, Canasta, Chutes and Ladders, Life, Careers, Battle Ship, Rack-O and some lesser known games. Several of these come in small boxes and use special cards: Quiddler, Rat-a-tat-cat, Frog Juice, and for small kids Panda-momium and Hiss. We were/are particularly fond of Rat-a-tat cat and Frog Juice. Blink is also supposed to be very good. A game my teenage daughter and I got hooked on for a while is Fluxx--which is a card game with a special pack of cards. The rules of the game continually change depending on the card you play. It is great fun. We wore through a couple of decks. Mary 228: Harry's Hat game sounds like it would be lots of fun. Thanks for the chance to reminisce.