Thanks Kim. This is exactly what I found. A lot of my babies have very red new growth. And that's where I found them....Good thing I had my glasses on! I usually find them when I'm showering my roses in the morning. This time I saw them later in the day and had to squish them with my fingers. Yuck, Aphid guts. I see you haven't had any luck yet finding Dottie Louise. I am good at web searching, (part of my job) and if I can be of help, I would be pleased to. Well, I have to tell you about this..... The first David Austin I ordered from Texas was absolutely perfect. It has grown like a weed and is going to be very beautiful. I ordered another that I couldn't get through Regans, and it arrived in awful shape. It was stuffed into the (very long) box and had 5 spaghetti like canes that were from 3.5 ft to 5 ft long. (I measured) The rose must have been in the tiny pot for a very long time. It was also too tall to travel for that length of time (4 days) with no water. The ends of the canes were dried crispy and 2 canes didn't even weather the journey. No more ordering online. I will have to look at the rose before I buy it. I got Wm Shakespeare from Regans, very much past the season for buying container roses, and I thought THAT ONE was sickly. Nothing like this one. Let me know if I can help you search for your rose. I am very thankful for all the help you have been for me. andrea

Hi Dan, Thanks for your fast answer. I have seen June bugs for all the years we've lived here, but never thought about what they eat! Seeing them eating the fig leaves last year was a surprise--So much so, I couldn't believe I was seeing June bugs. I really never looked at a June bug up close, so I didn't notice how they look before. I can see them clearly through the plastic sandwich bag. What kind of insecticide is used to spray under the trees that won't hurt us walking on it, or weeding under them? I guess I'll just keep going out and picking them off the trees and the lone pepper plant. And here I thought they were harmless light bugs! I know I always hate when one flies into my hair and gets stuck. When I grab it to pull it out of my hair, it invaiably grabs onto me, which throws me into a case of the frissons, but good! One year, a long time ago now, I raised two baby possums and when they were weaned, I would catch June bugs in a Dixie cup and feed them to the babies. They loved them and would grab them from the cup and crunch them up like popcorn! All my little Yorkies loved them, as well and would run around the patio crunching them up as fast as they could catch them. Oh--Yech! Vivian

Matt, Stink bugs are not known to have many natural predators, which is one reason they are so hard to control. There are some species of stink bugs that are herbivores and eat plants early on, and then turn into carnivores and eat....guess what.....other stink bugs! Other than that, some species of lizards and some bugs eat them sometimes, but their 'stinkiness' gives them protection from most other predators. I don't know that the frogs or snakes ever reach the stink bugs. Our frogs tend to be hanging out around the back yard where we have a lily pond, quite a bit of shade, and 30 tomato plants in containers. The big garden is quite some distance from that and most of it is in sun until mid- to late afternoon. There's usually not many frogs in our hot, dry, sunny garden although we have a resident turtle and, every now and then, a toad and some lizards. The snakes are an issue in and of themselves since we mostly have timber rattlers and copperheads (that's what I've been seeing this week), water moccasins in our ponds and creeks (thankfully they are not in the garden) and an occasional western diamondback rattler. Oh, and rat snakes and chicken snakes that like to get in the chicken coop and eat eggs and chicks. While snakes might be helpful in the garden, I don't want them there. I hate snakes. In my garden, the stink bugs are usually on plants anywhere from waist-high to head high, so while a snake might be able to reach them, the toads and frogs and turtles couldn't. At least here (as far as I know), the stink bugs are primarily garden and agricultural pests. In parts of the country where the winters are colder, they invade homes in the fall, undoubtedly looking for a warm place to overwinter. It is my understanding that stinkbugs inside the house are hard to control, and it is hard to keep them out, because they've been known to come down the chimneys! If I had to make my best guess, I'd give our one-day 11.87" rainfall credit for the lower numbers of stinkbugs and squash bugs (so far) this year. I'd bet that relentless rainfall washed away the overwintering ones that weren't up and about yet. We also have been having greatly reduced numbers of grasshoppers, probably for the same reason. Unfortunately, grasshoppers tend to accompany hot, drought-like weather, so we all may have trouble with them later ths summer. I am seeing a lot of tiny hoppers (1/4" to 1/2") just these last couple of days, so clearly another hatch is on. Here at our house, the guineas and chickens control them pretty well though. Dawn

That's fine :) it's all the same stuff "IPA" be it used for injection swabs or tapehead cleaning. I buy IPA in 99.9% purity for electronic equipment cleaning and cut it with water to whatever % I need. It can dry out fine thin leaves of herb seedlings that I sprayed with 99.9% IPA (whoops! My bad) but thicker jade leaves wouldn't be bothered by IPA diluted 1:1-1:2 with water.