Thanks for the link, terrijean, emailed you privately. In the meantime do you think some of us could brainstorm and try that mixture? What proportions would be safe? I'm not real confident it would work, that maybe they had gorged enough there and sought a more plentiful food source elsewhere. Still usually they dwindle in numbers and wouldn't leave en masse like that, could be coincidence, just don't know at this point if it was due to what she sprayed. Since I have a one-gallon sprayer, I was thinking of trying 1/2 cup of each, using RealLemon, white vinegar and Ivory Liquid and fill the sprayer up with water and mix well, probably not this year. I'd have to refill that sprayer a lot to spray all the stuff they have been on. Also the article did not jive with a link anntn6b TN posted about the origin of the beetles in the US. That article said the JB's came in a shipment in the soil of the roots of iris or some plant and got loose in NJ was it, don't know which thread that link was on but read the article in its entirety? Anyway it had nothing to do with what the article said, that they were deliberately imported to control mites. Maybe the person quoted had them confused with those orange ladybugs that became such a nuisance in the fall. I see the red ones are back in my yard in small numbers, had not seen any in years. Finally, the article mentioned Sevin. I will read more on that, but but thought the residual effects of that were harmful to bees because of an ingredient in it. Since it said not to spray flowers, unless it acts as a repellant, I don't see how that would work very well for blooming roses. I'm trying not to use anything with the ingredient imidacloprin in many Bayer products because I saw with my own eyes the residual effects kill/disable/disorient bees even at around the 48-hour mark and after a fairly heavy rain (see pesticides and bees thread on the OGR forum now on p2). Wow, she REALLY had them bad, sounds almost as bad or worse than that old Alfred Hitchcock movie, "The Birds" the way they were swarming so she couldn't even go outside. So they must be really bad where you are. I'm not too far from you, maybe 100 mi or so in E. IA, and I'm still counting about 20 or so a day. I'd cut off the rest of my blooms as so few are going now but fear they would still just attack something else, and they are easier to find and pick out of rose blooms. Shaking my bushes would not work. Most are too big, most would land on the ground and not bucket, even a 5-gal one, and some are deep in blooms and cling stubbornly or would fly away.

that's not a biting of anything. it's some kind of damage done to the leaf. It could have been folded or crushed at some point. maybe when it was repotted several leaves got crushed. So not problem there. the rest of the leaf is a good colour of green. Its not lacking sunlight for sure. Now if you placed it outdoors in direct sunlight it would have caused sunburns and damaged the plant. -- an error I made myself when I transplanted here in Canada. I came from the tropics where these plants are plentiful. These are under canopy plants and so they enjoy indirect sunlight -which is the reason they have such large leaves because that's needed for all the sunlight they can get. They are climbers too as they tent to grow up jungle trees to capture that sunlight. But they always stay within the shade. Yep, they can grow upwards of 20 feet. I've seen taller growths in the rainforest. However you do need to consider root space. if it's cramp then it can no longer sustain taller growths. you can always keep it short. Anyway.. you get the point. No direct sunlight. And lots of humidity.

I am in San Diego 5 miles from the coast. Winters and Summers are both mild...Winter lasts for 3 - 4 months, Summer about 4 - 5. Funnycide is correct, I currently have an old Day/Night gas furnace and no AC. I am trying to get the new Furnace installed in the rafters of my garage, but the City of San Diego wants me to rebuild the whole thing to accomodate the unit and 6 service techs (a little sarcasm, sorry). I understand needing some structural checks and balances, but it has gone waaaay past ridiculous here. A word to the wise about remodeling within the boundaries of the City of San Diego...don't. Not worth it. Anyway, thanks all for your help.

Well, I've drawn out about a bazillion rearrangements, and out of those my husband and I selected about three of them for me to play around with a bit, to see if one shouts that this is the one to refine. I have to take breaks from this process often or I get too stressed out. Trying to keep it somewhat enjoyable. Graph paper speaks. It can make it obvious when the floorplan closes the house in too much, blocks views, etc,. Sometimes it shows that despite a room looking large, there is no good place to put couches, etc. because of walking paths to other rooms. The style house we are going to build is the old Florida "cracker style" home. It has a fairly steep pitched roof (metal), and a FULL wrap around porch. I don't want to bump out into or take away from the porch in any way. Most of the year we are able to use our porches. I've dreamed of this porch for years. It's more important to me than the sewing room, or anything else. An idea as to how we want the outside of the house to look like is to go onto the crackerstyleloghomes.com site and look at the "Fowler" That's the porch I want. I've come to the conclusion that I really don't want a loft. For one thing one never knows when they might break a leg. The other is I'm not getting any younger. After speaking with a few people that have lofts, many of them generally stop using them after awhile. Maybe it's the isolation thing. My husband and I also do not care for the extremely high vaulted ceilings that results over the unlofted area. The other issue is, lofts adds a huge, huge amount to the building costs. I'm afraid of having a half completed home if we do a loft. I know we have enough money to build a single story. I think. If we are very, very careful, and eat beans and rice. It's much cheaper to increase the base footprint, or build another structure than to build a loft and finish it off in nice wood. Some people will leave the floor joists exposed on the lower level, but I don't care for that look. I would want the ceiling portion done in tongue and groove like the walls. Heating and cooling costs also increase greatly with a lofted home, and they certainly aren't getting any cheaper!. The ceiling is so vaulted that it becomes wasted volume that is climate controlled. I think what I will end up with is a sewing room that is decent sized, but not quite as large as I would like. If I situate it properly, such as french doors that open into the great room, I can just wheel my cutting table into there to cut if I need more space. It doesn't bother my husband or I if I do that, and it can get wheeled back into the sewing room if company is expected. We really don't entertain much anyway, and if someone stops over unexpected to say hi, it doesn't bother me if they see my stuff out. I've been waiting to post a floor plan until we narrow the orientation of the rooms down to one we think will work. Then I truly want all of you to give me your thoughts on how best to refine it. I'll most liklely need help with the boxes that are storage areas and closets. Maybe with some prayer I will get to that point early this week. Moccasinlanding, I LOVE your storage ideas with stairs and such. They are excellent. I do like lofts....a lot. However, when I wrote down the pros and cons, the cons seem to be greater in number. Lofts can make less than "nice" things happen to the house, such as the high vaults. It certainly makes the house much harder to maintain, especially the outside structure being so far up in the air. (Think huge ladders). However, when it comes down to it, my main worry is running out of money mid construction. I refuse to get a mortgage or loan again. It's too nice living debt free now. My husband keeps saying how he can build me a sewing studio near the house (now to match it), for a reasonable amount of money. I've noticed that all the men I've spoken with LOVE detatched work areas. It must be a guy thing. They just don't understand my reluctance about it. The other evening we had a very violent thunderstorm. Bad lightning and rain, and we lost power for three hours. I pointed out that I couldn't see myself in a detatched studio in that kind of weather. In reality though, I wouldn't have stayed out in this imagined studio anyway. I love him dearly, but I swear the male species is from another planet. They probably think the same thing about women:) Maybe we women just feel more secure doing things within our homes, while men are genetically programmed to leave the house in order to hunt dinner for us. Sandy