Tom, that's really interesting about the relationship between the horned toads and red ants. We had giant red ants, nearly as big as carpenter ants, down around San Bernardino when I was a kid, and we also had horned toads. I don't think I've ever seen any since then. Janet, I think I'm going to have to be very careful with the grasses, now that you've said that some can be quite invasive. Naturally I knew that, but I had hoped the ones that we see in use as ornamentals would tend to be more well-behaved. I've got 6 acres of cleared pasture, but I don't think I'd call it prairie, since we're pretty well surrounded by oak trees everyplace else. I've also got a border of cedars that runs all the way around the property. The original owner put them there. I hate the things because of the way they tend to harbor ticks and they are such a fire hazard. My big flower border where I'd like to use some ornamental grasses for interest, runs across the front of the house section of the property, but it's on the far side of a humongous cement parking area that's about 40' x 130'. It's nearly the size of a city lot! If the bed on the far side was just a little strip, it wouldn't be so bad. It's not. When I ordered weed cloth, I had to measure it to get an idea of the size. It's 24' x 80' and was full of stuff like crabgrass, burr clover, stick-tights and poison oak; a big weed patch that had to be mowed all the time. After the first year, I couldn't stand to look at it any longer. The soil in the bed seems to be pretty good, as I've said before, but it isn't what you could call a 'yard' with all that concrete between it and the house. I began a weed control program and started putting in some of the larger foundation plants; a couple of maple trees, 3 crape myrtles, a Rose of Sharon and so on. The maples may eventually hang out over the parking lot, but it's so big that I can't see that it will be a problem. The soil in the bed seems to be pretty good, and looks to be a pretty neutral ph, but as I've said before, but it isn't what you could call a 'yard' with all that concrete between it and the house. Weeds are still my biggest problem, and most of them are a grass of one sort or another. The crabgrass/devilgrass is a nightmare. I'm going to try using the industrial-grade weed cloth that DeWitt sent to replace the stuff that failed, but the last thing I need is something that tends to be invasive, or that will let native weeds grow up through it. Somehow I managed to bring in a start of vinca major, and it's a disaster. Now it's another big bunch of tall grass with vinca leaves poking through it. I need to rip it all out. Are there any of the native grasses that are both non-invasive and also dense enough to pretty well choke out anything that tries to grow through them? I see them a lot in Shawnee and Tecumseh, but they are in planters with little else around them, so it's hard to tell what they would do in a garden like this, that tends to have a rampant grass population in spite of everything I can do to stop it. Oh, and I think you're the one who directed me to that silt test at Fine Gardening? Or was it Tom? I've forgotten. Anyway, thank you. I quit taking the mag a long time ago, so I hadn't seen it. It's a really good article, and I'm going to try it. The question seems to have already been answered. I won't be digging up any trailer-loads of the silty stuff in the chicken pens and putting it in the garden. I'll just stick to adding manure to the compost heap. I do have a neighbor who raises chicks and who sometimes brings the cedar bedding from the pens, so I add that also and let it compost down. It should not be any problem, should it? The bedding I add in from our sheep pens is generally oat straw or native grass hay and manure. I haven't worried about it too much and it does not seem to be seeding. I hope I'm not creating a monster by using it and will get a big surprise later on. Sorry I wandered around so far away from the original topic of garden grasses. It's hard to draw the line between controlling weed grasses and putting in the good ornamental ones and keep the thread separate. Pat ps: Janet, I absolutely love your photo of the wildflower up against the blue wall. It is so good, and has such a southwest feel about it. Have you ever thought of entering it in photo competition? Seriously. It's good.

I suggest anyone living in Tx familiarize themselves with the 4 venomous snakes before trying to identify dozens of common harmless ones plus another dozen not so common harmless as well. Who cares what his scientific and common name is as long as you know wherther it's venomous? When I say we have 4,that is grouping all the different rattle snakes into a single group. There is also 2 corals but if you learn to identify either on sight,you will recconize both as coral emediatly. About a dozen of our harmless snakes memic the coral's red-yellow-black colors but they are simple to recconize with this little rhyme. Red touch black,friend of jack,red touch yellow will kill a fellow. Pull up pictures of Texas snakes and play a game with 2 or more players. Cover the names of the red,yellow and black snakes and have others say wherether it's a coral or not. Be wise and don't attempt to say what the snake's name is,just yes or no. Now you will recconize a coral as well as all the harmless with one good look. Do we even need to explain how to recconize a rattler? I do suggest listening closly any time you are near one in captivity so you might be aware of one some day when you havn't seen it. There,you already know how to id half the venomous snakes in Texas,work on the copperhead and cottonmouth and you will feel much better next time you cross paths with a snake. We had many more in times passed but the scorpions,alligators,spiders,fireants,wasps,yellow jackets,chiggers,ticks and wild hogs have been eating them up recently.

Snakes seem to be around areas where there are frogs. That has been my experience. Do you have frogs, like tree frogs, at your house? At my last house, we were not near a stream, but we had lots of tree frogs, and the occasional snake. At a park there are occasional frogs (that we saw go plop in the water when we walked by) and we found 4 snakes in 30 minutes! At my present house I have never seen a frog (occasional toads, about 1 per year) and I have never seen a snake.

Lowe's has it and I have seen it a Wal-Mart, but they have removed most of their garden supplies. At Lowe's,it is with the pesticides. I think it costs about $20.00 a gallon sized container, but may be on sale this time of year. I read somewhere that Snake-A-Way is not really effective. The main active ingredient is the chemical mothballs are made of, and mothballs do not repel snakes or anything else except moths and people. It does have to be reapplied after every rainfall. So,unless you live in the desert southwest,it will take a lot of the repelent to supposedly keep snakes out of the yard from Spring through Fall.