My garden beds overwinter with a nice thick layer of leaves. And while it's not necessary to remove them, I did rake back and remove about half the leaves around the beginning of Spring. It was a lot of work, but I'm cutting down perennials and raking up sticks etc. anyway. The leaves end up being used on lasagne beds or the compost pile at the back of the garden - which usually ends up becoming part of a future garden bed. My theory is that raking off some leaves would serve several purposes: - prevent the bulbs from getting that weird yellow color because they've been growing for awhile under a couple inches of leaves - the soil warms up a bit faster - the reseeders get more of a chance to sprout, and I love to poke around in the garden and see what's reseeded - it allows me to move stuff around a little more easily without having to shuffle through leaves - I transplant stuff around so much, the plants should be on wheels In late Spring, when everything is more or less settled for the season, I usually add some extra shredded leaves and compost at that point.

I'm not a big fan of petruska's method, it seems extreme and risky, cooking bulbs in a bag... There's no argument from me that it worked tho! I prefer gentler methods myself...if I was asleep, and someone poured blazing hot water on me...I'd wake up, but I'd throw a fit once I woke up! These alocasia don't seem to mind tho! Atleast not from what I've seen' They are very slow to wake up once dormant! No doubt about that! I too would caution you not to wake it up yet, unless you can artificially provide ample heat and LIGHT then you will only be stressing the plant worse, and likely sealing its fate... I'd wait until march or April and start uping the heat and moisture, if all goes well the plant might reappear in may or June lol... As to tropics reference of the name amozonica...there's apparently no correct name for this plant, poly is wrong, it's not a polyploid, amazonicas wrong, it comes from Asia, Alocasia mortefontanensis is name given to it when the original cross was made, over 100 years ago! For those who haven't read it, this link I added maybe helpful! It's an interesting read either way! I try my best to not get hung up on names of plants, I like the plant, ill grow it! I might name it Cindy or frank so I know who I'm talking about... Here is a link that might be useful: Exotic rainforest

I've been waking up every evening and morning to the sound of at least 4 spiders feverishly making a lavish web... INSIDE. my bedroom window. They literally wake me up!! I've been leaving my light on at night so I can wake up and actually see what's going on... but as soon as I move an inch towards the spider spray they literally disappear. vanish... I don't see them scurry off.. I've immediately taken the curtains apart and lifted the shades, sprayed bleach and Lysol around the entire window, and nothing!! the next morning boom!! they are back! there is one large (4" at least) and 3 smaller spiders... about half the size of the large one. I'm not getting bitten and they are not climbing in bed with me... but I really don't want them in my bedroom or even my house for that matter. they scurry off so fast I can't catch them!!!! I feel I'm on the verge of an infestation and they have to GO!! any suggestions!? I'm getting very little sleep only other spider issue I remember having was a year ago... I flipped over an outside garbage can and literally 100 spiders scattered. I some how managed to catch most of them in the can when, in shock and horror, I tossed it and it landed up right with the spiders trapped inside. I then put the large, over studded bag of trash on top of them and walked away. the bad very slowly same into the can, so there's no way they got out. but those spiders resemble the ones in my bedroom now... is this an infestation? how much food would it take to sustain 4 large spiders like that? is there something I'm missing? because I don't have any noticable bugs... they only exception I can think of is I've always been in pleasantly surprised by the occasional thousand legger silver bug. and they bite!! if I'm safe, and the spiders are leaving me alone and eating the biting vermin... I'll learn to live with them...

Trish: I have two of the ones that automatically change the time for me. However, both were manufactured prior to when they started changing the dates of when the time changes take place. Mine were both doing what you said yours did. On one, I was able to disable the DST and have to manually set it now like my others. But one of them continues to do it and I have to keep resetting it. Time change used to be first Sunday in April, it's now the 2nd Sunday in March. Shirley