pepibom I believe those ARE scale. Mealy bugs are fuzzy and white even cottony if you will. I battle these constantly and unfortunately they are very difficult to get rid of.....completely any way. They also LOVE the flat leaves of a bird of paradise plant. I recently received three orange BOP and am hoping to keep these away. I have lost many white BOP to these stupid things. I believe they make honeydew which is a sticky substance and that can eventually cause more problems like fungus or disease. You mentioned it's not looking the best. If the plant is stressed out it is a calling card for pests. This also will make it more difficult to rid the pests. The location it's in sounds right to me for these plants. They like sun. I would definitely keep wiping the plant down with a solution of rubbing alcohol water and some mild dish detergent. Use a cloth and wipe the leaves on top and under, stems and all. I'm hopin someone else will chime in here because like I said I have these pests myself. I just wiped down a couple of cast iron plants myself-- talk about time consuming. If it's bad or becoming a bother you might consider finding a new plant- although two years is a long time to have a plant. These plants however I find are rather easily attainable. They are a lovely plant to add to a collection and really add a tropical feel. Good luck on the battle!!! Kyle

I'm NOT in a tropical climate -- far, far drier. But what Nik said: nikthegreek(9b/10a E of Athens, Greece) What the roses may find stressful as plants is not the heat or humidity but the lack of winter coolness That rang true for me. While not tropical, here in coastal Southern California, we also have No Winter Chill. In that situation, Austin roses that were perfectly well-behaved elsewhere morphed here into Jolly Green Giants ... growing 12- 14-ft. tall, and blooming only at the very top. If we cut them down, they responded by hunkering down and growing back to 12-ft., to produce one large bloom or cluster. After a few seasons of that, we had to acknowledge the advice we had received that these were not the ideal roses for our conditions. We still grow a few Austins . . . Golden Celebration is great here (but would blackspot for you). Prospero is one of my all-time favorites, as is Belle Story, and my DH loves Cymbaline.

Well, I'll get to find out this year if fat, woody canes above a graft can produce new green stuff, because I have 4 grafted roses that have zero green. I did cover them with leaves (heavily), but that didn't cut it. This year we had bitter cold for us but only a spell or two of snow that came late. Over a foot! I wish it'd come sooner :( The ones that really worry me are the more unusual (or pretty rare) ownroots. But since they do have roots, they'll all sprout up again, right? Oh, they'd better! Those were still young from Vintage or RU, but they all looked great and big and thick enough going into winter. I protected those better and they still lost everything up top. None of my really established roses had a bit of problem, even the teas. It was the grafts (I don't bury) or the smaller ones that really took a beating. This year I'm taking insurance cuttings and rooting all my favorites, just in case! Oh, yeah, my main water pipe froze solid underground for nearly a week this winter, too. No bursting, though :) May that luck hold out, lol.

My brugmansia came back after the summer heat. Here it is right now and it's getting quite big. It does very well in the shade and it's been giving me quite a lot of flowers lately. Yes, elephant ears work here. I'd suggest getting some from the alocasia family, not colocasias. I've tried colocasias, they grow well in the spring and fall but they just cannot take the heat at all in the summer, in my experience. Here's one of my Borneo Giants in full shade They will die back when it hit below freezing for more than a couple hours, but if that happens, don't water them again for the rest of the winter or else the bulb will rot. Just wait for them to pop back up in spring. Same thing with Cannas. If you're going for tropical, get some Cannas, since they LOVE being in full sun here. another one I'd recommend is the Chinese Parasol Tree. Big foliage and can take some sun. I have mine in morning sun/full shade in the afternoon. The plant loses its leave in the winter and goes dormant. Here's mine now after a week from coming back from dormancy. It's already grown about 6+ inches! Birds of paradise are great as well here in Phoenix. They're frost hardy down to 25-26f I believe. Split-leaf Philodendron are great as well. Just plant them in the shade. Plus you can find these easily at HD or Lowes. I wouldn't risk planting a castor bean though since you have pets. They drop a lot of those red spiny bean pods all over, and from what I've read are very poisonous. I'm not sure about the brug's toxicity though. Their flowers might be poisonous?