Spider mites ... the scourge of indoor gardeners. I've tried a number of different remedies from houseplant insecticides, which can sometimes be harsh, to horticultural oils, to simply hand-washing each leaf. If you have a small plant, rinsing the plant off regularly with water or hand-washing each leaf with slightly soapy water or a 50% rubbing alcohol-water mixture seems to be fairly effective. I'm sure others will offer advice.

This is a re-post of my comment from the thread on pine bark mulch. I don't know just how hot it has been in E.TX, but if the temps are anywhere between 90 and 100, your plants are too living too warm to convert nutrients to energy. This is how I lower the soil temp without having to move my plants into shade: I use pine bark almost exclusively for my figs. It's lighter and airier than many bagged mulches, so it's better at regulating soil temperature, as well. I prefer the "mini-nuggets". My figs seem to love it, both in-ground and in pots. Do check that the "pine bark" you buy is mostly PINE BARK. Some of it contains oak, pine or cypress shavings, as well. I would warn that pine bark is slightly acidic, so as it breaks down to compost you can either replace it, or add a bit of lime to the soil. One caveat: my figs tend to root into that nice airy mulch, especially in humid weather. If you leave your figs in-ground for the winter, provide extra mulch on the root zone to protect any surface roots. ***One other use I have for pine bark is for double potting. I have a couple of figs in a very hot full-sun, concreted area; and to prevent cooking the roots, I place the potted fig in a larger plain, unglazed CLAY pot (two sizes bigger, at least), fill the gap between the the two pots with pine bark, and water the bark well. The evaporation from the nuggets and clay pot cools the root zone by several degrees, without keeping the fig roots too wet. The figs will root into the pine bark if left alone, but I just turn the inner pot every few days and it solves that problem. Of course, this means using large, heavy, EXPENSIVE pots, but it's worth it for the way my figs are growing!*** ***I checked yesterday (6-28-09) when the air temp here was 93. The soil temp in my double-potted figs was 81 on the shady side, 83 on the sunny side, in full sun, at 4pm.***

Style and age would be a lot easier to tell with -close up photos, especially of hardware and the sides of the drawers -better lit photos -photo with drawers in and doors closed -picture of the top to see if a "top half" is indeed missing As it is I can vaguely see the inside of the door looks like it might be oak and that's about it.

Actually there isn't a board in the country that can tell you what you do with the inside of your house. Although it has been successfully argued on the supreme court level that the outside of the house exists in the public realm and therefore local governments can make rules about what you do to it, I highly doubt it will ever be considered constitutional to legislate interiors. The landmarking of interiors even in public buildings is very very rare and fairly difficult to do. As far as whether boards are arbitrary or not, one thing they are not allowed to be (if they expect their decisions to stand up to lawsuit) is arbitrary. The architectural review standards of any community need to be spelled out, even if the guidelines are vague and provide wide latitude to the board members. This is far from arbitrary even though they may differ from one community to the next. Yes, I sit on such a board and yes, we have rules and standards and yes, I am currently involved in writing new ones (and I have worked with/observed boards from many other communities, both large and small). As far as what is considered "remuddling" and what is not, that is, of course, subjective. In true preservation, you must first define the "era of significance" of the house. This is generally when the house was first built, but if a significant event took place there or a significant person lived there, it can be a later date. Generally the only time you actually take a house in full back to a previous era is if the home is/will become museums. I can't think of anyone I know, even in the preservation community, who would not want the modern conveniences of things like indoor plumbing and electricity in their house and a kitchen with modern, functioning appliances even if these things predate their homes. I have friends who have a really neat kitchen, with an old monitor top refridgerator and an old chambers stove (before they were made popular by rachel ray) but their house was built in 1840 so these "modern conveniences" still differ from when their house was built by 80 years. A good rule of thumb is to identify the "character defining features" of any old house... ie what makes this house special. Those are the things one should work to preserve. Original windows (that often come in configurations, have thin muntins and wavy glass), original doors, original trimwork, porches, etc are the sorts of things that make old houses different from new ones. Remuddling, for most rational people, involves stripping the essential character from the house. It could be argued that a kitchen should be in keeping with the age of the house but personally I'd be much less concerned about a ca1960 kitchen being torn out and replaced with a ca2007 kitchen, even if it's styled in a modern way than say taking down the original victorian bullseye mouldings and replacing it with craftsman style mouldings because that's what you prefer. In the kitchen example you're not destroying anything worth saving, in the trimwork example you should just buy a craftsman house if that's the look you desire. Of course remuddling is also a word used by those who feel they "know better" to beat people over the head for not doing things their way. I'm a firm believer, even though I have a background in historic preservation, that the best way to preserve a house is for someone to love it and use it and the best way for that to happen is to allow them to put their own mark on it. If people haven't been doing that throughout the ages then there would be significantly fewer interesting things about old houses IMO. Poorly done changes to homes are detrimental to the home regardless of the age. All that said, I do believe "new house" people and "old house" people are just two different breeds and disasterous things can happen when they mix. I lived in a new house and HATED it, couldn't wait to get out of there. Of course some people build new, beautiful homes that successfully copy historic styles... but if you want to turn an old house into a new one, look for one that has already been stripped of its character defining features so you can imprint your own character on it. Yes, by having an old house BE an old house you are limiting your potential buyers but at the same time realize that there is also a limited number of old houses in great condition too whereas newer houses with less character are FAR more common. I do think that the supply and demand are in relative balance for that segment of the market.