I can't wait until all the lilies I bought this year have increased like mad and I have tons of beauties to trade, and it will be no more LA. I'm going to try the alfalfa stuff as a fertilizer as suggested on another post. Happy gardening. Christine

Luuk ants also avoid garlic. A garlic tea sprayed on your roses will work nicely to keep them away. My fire ants are the big problem here. Like Jim says, all you can do is get them to move elsewhere, you cannot conquer them. Aggressive as a ground hornet too. I've had to wash them out of pots of hosta several times after a period of rain. The mound goes up the petioles quite far, even for a plant as tall as Manhattan. I remember getting into some fire ants as a child and the bites became infected, looked like small pox on my legs, and was very hard to clear. I read that ants "farm" the aphids to eat their sweet nectars. In a book titled ROSES LOVE GARLIC which is about companion plantings, they planted garlic with the roses. And of course the garlic tea works very well. The Hanging Hosta of Hampshire use such as a spray for their hosta. Here is a link that might be useful: Hanging Hosta of Hampshire video

Austin has some pockets of really truly cr@ppy soil, and some good stuff. Soil tests are our friends. Learning about the different solutions for amendment. I have heard that some people with red death clay have brought in some composted HARDWOOD native mulch and tilled 6" in and then not done anything with it for a year and let it rot. Others have loaded on 6 inches of compost and let the bugs cary it into the dirt. Sounds almost to good to be true. I used to live on clay. Not red death but a river cut bank with round river rock in it. Everytime I was out their with a shovel, I had compost from the Natural gardener to work into it. It got to be glorious dirt. I could grow everything. I thought I was a good gardener till I moved to 30 miles west of Austin on a high limestone hill with caliche and marl with mostly not much topsoil in the area around the house.. Many natives need to have the clay worked into loam by the bunch grass roots. that have broken it down. Find native grasses that want to break down the clay. Find a way to create structure in the clay. Gypsum, expanded shale, compost . Be aware the adding sand or decomposed granite has to be done in conjunction with more than equal amounts of mulch. One has to add at least 50% sand to have the clay not go back to cement. Research research research. I live on caliche now and I created raised beds in some areas where I grow vegetables because it was easier and immediate. I recommend compost tea. Geo Growers and the Natural Gardener for soil products. If you have a recurring bug or decease problem, step back and let the soil heal itself. I had to step back from squash because of the squash bug. I am giving my whole garden a rest this year and growing green manure. The arugala, leeks, kale and chard have not heard that I am not growing anything this winter.. When it is hot, I start vegetables in pots in the shade.

Oh my!!! I WISH you would've come to my Paint Dept.!!! To correct a couple things.... 1) Stores calibrate their Scanner(s), not the tinters. Although computerized tinters usually have to be calibrated yearly. 2) Competitive-brand fandeck software can cost a bundle, and some stores may not want to buy this kinda stuff. All these REALLY are...are just lab-scans of different fandecks, and converted to formulas for a certain stores'/brands colorant-databases. 3) I do two things....I'll look at the "Stored formula" in our competitive library, and compare it to a couple of scans. Then I "back off" of a couple colorants, and shoot the color. This way, I can always add more to tweak a color. >>> There's no way to know if a stores' "Scan-Library" (Competitive Fandecks) will match a chip until the paints actually made. >>> Ask me how I know this....;-) From now on people: * Specify in your painters' contracts that you DO NOT want a color matched into "their favorite" brand...UNLESS you're OK with it. Possibly something like "No color matching". * Or, like I deal with every day...."I want -color x- matched into C2 paint". No problem there! It's usually quite a step up from the color-chip/brand they have! * Inquire with painters if they have favorite brands, and find out specifics. If you have a firm preference, see if your painter is OK with it too. Many will apply what you like. Others are pretty set in their ways!! Sorry for being "Mr. Wordy" there! Faron