T. urvilleana seems quite a bit tougher than the T. heteromalla (I have both). It definitely likes sun better; the T. heteromalla gets sun-burned with only 2 hrs of sun. I think T. heteromalla is a typical tropical understory plant - it needs bright indirect light and warmth to bloom. Unfortunately it is in one of the coldest spots in the garden, and the chill factor seems to prevent blooming. Citrus and roses have certain similarities - the most obvious is that they are "born hungry". Meyers are the hungriest citrus of all because they bear not only heavily, but when young, whereas most citrus don't bear much until 7 yrs of age. I use any old citrus fertilizer alternated with a custom mix of humic acid/greensand/alfalfa meal, at least 7-12x per year. Twice a year I give a direct shot of liquid iron - just open the bottle and pour, then water it in (or let the rains do it).

Angie, Well at least manslaughter is not as serious as murder. Seriously, though, sometimes you just have to do what you have to do and I don't think y'all have harmed the crape myrtle at all. I would go ahead and cut out the dead trunk. I don't know that I'd say y'all went too far in your efforts to improve the health of your crape myrtle. It looks pretty good right now. The population of crape myrtle aphids usually peaks in late July and early August. Sometimes when the infestation is especially heavy, the lady bugs do have a hard time keeping up with all the aphids. I am glad you didn't spray anything that would hurt the lady bugs because they are incredibly beneficial. In the future, you can simply knock the apids off the plants with a sharp stream of water at high pressure. (You can use a hose nozzle or watering wand that has a high-pressure feature to do this. On my watering wand, there is a position called 'jet' that sprays a high-pressure stream of water when the want is set to that feature.) Sometimes you have to do it once or twice a day until you've done it enough to discourage them enough that they just move on. The honeydew from the aphids is not a problem in and off itself, but it can serve as a host for a black mold called sooty mold. It is unsightly and can cause defoliation when it is heavy, but the overall health of the tree is not harmed and new leaves will come out to replace any that fall off because of the sooty mold. There are several ways to deal with the aphids in the future so that you don't have a recurring issue with them every year. First, you can spray your crape myrtle with dormant oil during the dormant season in order to kill overwintering aphids. Then, in spring, check the undersides of your crape myrtle leaves in spring and spray them with insecticidal soap as soon as you notice aphids. If you can nip their population in the bud early, you usually can avoid having a major infestation of them. Having said that, since crape myrtle aphids only feed on crape myrtles, there always will be a population of them in your general area every summer, so keep checking the plants weekly and either hose off the aphids or use insecticidal soap on the undersides of the leaves. Once it is hot, though, you don't want to spray insecticidal soap on foliage because it can burn foliage of some plants in hot weather. Another alternative would be to buy and release lady bugs at the first sign of aphids on the plants in the spring. Lady bugs are kind of random and sometimes don't show up until the aphid population is huge. Sometimes I'll see them focusing on a specific pest on a specific type of plant when I'd rather have them on some other kind of plant eating its pests, but lady bugs don't take orders from humans. They don't even take requests. By buying them and releasing them on the crape myrtles when you see the aphid population appearing, you're ensuring the lady bugs are there while the population of aphids is small and more easy to wipe out. I am sure there are some broad-spectrum insecticides that would target the aphids, but I don't use broad-spectrum insecticides because they will kill all the beneficial insects too, so I am hoping you do not choose to spray with a broad-spectrum insecticide. About 97% of the insects we have in our yards and gardens are beneficial, and it would be a shame to kill them while trying to kill the 3% that are harmful. The aphid population will start dropping naturally in early to mid-August which is not that far away, so I'd just try to be patient and wait it out. I'm going to link my favorite Crape Myrtle website. It has great info in its FAQ and in its section on basic Crape Myrtle care. It also features a lot of great photos. If you're a lover of Crape Myrtles and you're ever traveling down to Dallas or points southward during Crape Myrtle season, it is well worth your while to visit McKinney for an hour or two just to see the incredible array of crape myrtles grown there. Whenever we are near McKinney in crape myrtle season, I make up an excuse to get off the highway and stop there just so we can enjoy the crape myrtles that are planted simply all over the place in McKinney. Sometimes when a plant has been topped (and this will sound drastic, but the CMs can survive it), the best way to restore its shape is to cut it back to the ground while it is dormant in winter or early spring. Then it will grow back in the shape that is natural for it. I did that with the 30-year-old crape myrtle on our property in Fort Worth because it appeared it had been topped repeatedly before we bought our house there. It regrew beautifully and the only pruning I ever had to do after that was just to remove the dead seedheads, damaged branches, branches that rubbed on one another, etc. I agree with your father-in-law that there's not much you can do to a crape myrtle that will permanently harm it. They are incredibly resilient plants. They fall in a category of great landscape plants that won't die and that you cannot kill easily (if at all). Well, extreme and exceptional drought did kill some crape myrtles in 2011, but I assume that is because they were not watered or not watered enough. Dawn Here is a link that might be useful: Crape Myrtle Trails

I'm in central Florida. I now have two big worm bins and they seem to survive both summer and winter. Make sure absolutely no sun hits your bin directly!!!!!! That would heat it up far more than you might think and in turn dry it out much faster. My bins are built from plywood and 2 x 4s. The tops are simply screen or hardware cloth to allow air. I think having legs on the bin is important so you can place the feet in containers of mineral oil to keep ants from climbing up into the bin. My bins are in an old dog kennel that we have wrapped in shade cloth and tarps to keep the sun out and the bins shaded. During the Hottest part of summer you need to check the moisture content of the bin more often but you still don't want to make it so wet that the bottom of the bin gets anaerobic and smelly. I find that the top couple inches of bedding in my bins is usually quite dry but most of the bin is still moist enough. Last summer we went away for a few weeks and when we got back the bins were a bit too dry but our worm population has bounced back even so and I've already harvested about 5 bucket fulls of castings and probably have another 5 to go. Our first summer with the worm bin I would take frozen jugs of water and place them in the worm bin to help cool things but now I don't think that is really needed unless the bin were getting some direct sun light or if we were having another summer like 1998 when it was 104 in the shade during May and the state burned. Where ever you place the bin, keep in mind that harvesting worm castings can be a messy procedure (I would avoid placing the bin where there is carpet.) And what type of bin you use, if there are ants around, you want the bin on a stand or to have legs you can place in containers of liquid to keep the ants from climbing in. Also make sure there are no other paths into the bin (don't let it touch the wall or leave anything leaning against it or let plants touch it.) It really sucks to stick your hand into the worm castings only to be bitten up by fire ants!!!! And materials, I like wood bins cause they breath a bit better than plastic so moisture and temperature are a bit easier to control. Only major change I'm planning for my bins is the replace the screen covers with some cage wire or hardware cloth as some critter has chewed through the screen. In summer my bins get lots of Black Soldier fly larva in them which I actually like since my fish and chickens love eating those far more than eating the worms. Here is a link that might be useful: TCLynx

Radiators do not dry the air any more than any other heat source. All other things being equal, the only things that affect the final relative humidity are the absolute humidity in the air and the air temperature. What makes indoor air dry in winter is excessive air exchange with outdoor air. The moisture that is produced by ordinary living (breathing, cooking, bathing and cleaning) leaks out. Poorly designed and installed ducted, forced air, heat can make matters worse by inducing pressure differentials turning the forced air system into a power vent. If you have excessively dry air, put money into air sealing your structure. It will pay off handsomely in summer and winter. Steam heat radiators that are installed well in a good design and maintained properly can be silent, or nearly so. There is something wrong with your system. I am not saying that you can easily fix it, but there is something wrong. A competent steam contractor will know how to add a steam heat exchanger to your current cooling duct set-up. High temperature steam is ideal for a relatively compact heat exchanger. The main problems might be how to run the pipes and if there is room for the heat exchanger. You may not be able to move enough air to heat even though you can move enough in the current ducts to cool sufficiently. It may not be practical for those considerations. If cost is no object, you might be able to add radiant heat to the floors via a steam to water heat exchanger with an associated circulator pump and expansion tank. You may be able to find a contractor on a forum that has a lot of "steam heads" posting. Try heatinghelp.com and terry love.com.