I usually have cymbidiums in close proximity to cattleyas and epidendrums. Scale would usually be found in the cymbidiums but rarely transfer to the cattleyas and epidendrums. Aphids tend to cluster around the flowers of the reed stem epidendrums and appear to leave my other orchids alone.

Annie . . . Thank you for your info. Well . . . I believe they are brugs, but until I see a bloom, I won't know for sure. But the previous owner (who gave them up because she had to move into a situation where she could not take them with her) said they were Angel Trumpets. After finding this site, I asked her which direction the flowers grow and she said down, so I enlightened her about Brugs vs Daturas which she did not know. She says that one of them is salmon colored, one is peach, and one is yellow, but I don't remember which is which. As I stated before, she said that she has never smelled anything from hers. I will be waiting for your pics. As for my neighbor and her problem with baby brugs popping up all over her lawn, hers was definitely a brug because the huge yellow flowers hung down over her fence and, because her backyard runs along a narrow, one-way alley that is heavily used by neighborhood vehicle traffic, people complained that the flowers kept hitting their cars. As a matter of fact, I got all the way to work one day, got out of my car, and found a blossom stuck to my car antenna. I got the impression that the babies were more like runners than seeds. I was just over there and she is still pulling them up as she sees them. Karyn . . . thank you for the pics. The leaves on one of mine (the one with the partially severed Y) looks like your first picture. Some of the larger, lower leaves are somewhat jagged (sort of like a big pointsettia leaf as Annie described), but not all of them are like that. I can't see enough of the leaf in your second picture, but the flower sure is beautiful!! I will spend some time looking at pictures that people have posted on this site to try and get some idea of what I really have. Annie . . . How do you smell the leaves? Do I have to snap them? crush them? I get very close to mine because I am constantly looking for evidence of blooms, and I have not detected any smell at all. My leaves are all smooth . . . none of the plants have hairy leaves. If someone could tell me how to post pictures, I will do that and maybe someone can help me identify exactly which I have. Oh if I could only get a bloom!!

Hi Stephanie! We had hours of thunder and lighning....but so little rain. I was hoping that if we were going to have all that "fuss", we'd have a good old-fashioned downpour to go along with it. We haven't had a REAL thunderstorm in such a very long time here. We had a thunderstorm last summer, probably in late July or early August. It had been SO VERY LONG since we'd had one that we went out to the covered porch that is attached to our barn and sat in the lawn chairs and watched it rain! Isn't that pitiful? We later found out that a lot of our neighbors did the same thing. LOL It was a lovely storm...lots of huge dark clouds and tons of lightning (one lightning strike ignited a fire in a hay barn north of us)...and we had a double rainbow. We got about 3/4s of an inch of rain in a fairly short time. I really miss the rain. (sigh) During the recent ice storms we had thundersleet and that was pretty cool. And, back in 2004 we had thundersnow. Oklahoma weather can be pretty interesting, and is rarely dull. Already this morning I have started seeds in little peat pots for 60 kinds of hot peppers, sweet peppers and herbs . Now that all the tomatoes are outside for good, the lighted shelves I use for seed starting were looking sort of empty. I don't get into much of a hurry with the peppers since they sulk if planted in cool soil. I'll be mowing three acres of rye grass today! Also planting nasturtiums "Caribbean Cocktail" as a companion plant in the vegetable garden, and, of course, today the tomatoes will actually go into the ground. About that laundry and housework....do you mean to tell me that we are actually expected to do those tasks when it is "gardening time"? I ALMOST have my husband and son convinced that you shouldn't cook or do laundry or do housework anytime the sun is shining and it is warm enough to be outside in the yard. Note that I said "almost". I'm home alone today, so once I step outside in a few minutes, I have no intention of coming inside to do anything! Have a wonderful and productive day. Hope the fence project goes well. Dawn

I have a copy of, "the NEW Fannie Farmer-Boston Cooking-School COOK BOOK", 1953. My father, in his retirement, took on the care of several Summer homes in Southern Maine. He would check on them during the winter, board up windows against storms, uncover rose gardens when the time was right, deal with emergencies...that kind of thing. During the Summer, when people were in residence, he was sort of a general, all around handyman. His largest client was old money...there was a beach named after the family, a road named after the family, and a huge home, loaded with antiques that had been the original furnishings. An elderly Black woman came up every summer from South Carolina to be their cook for the season. Little bittie thing, set in her ways and stubborn as heck, but since she'd been cooking for the family for decades, she knew what they liked and how to manage them. I had been separated from my father at age 5, and when I found him again in my early 30's, I went out to stay with him and my stepmother for a year to get to know them. He took me down to meet Marguerite. She was a kick, and we got along...several years later, when she knew that she wouldn't be able to make it up again the next season (or ever), she gave my father her Fannie Farmer for me. It still has a bunch of book marks in it, some with shopping lists, some with her name, some with cryptic notes I can't decipher, all in the same, slanted hand. I actually use the book quite a bit, but I don't disturb the bookmarks. I sometimes puzzle over the marked pages, wondering which recipe she had marked... I also have my mother's copy of "The Complete American-Jewish Cookbook",1952. It has a separate section of Passover recipes. There are no pork recipes, naturally. Generally, the cookies and bread recipes are good. As for unique...I have an Ethiopian cookbook...the only one I've been able to find. "Exotic Ethiopian Cooking-Society, Culture, Hospitality, & Traditions. I've only made a couple of dishes out of it. I love Ethiopian food, and when I found out how much Nit'ir Qibe (purified herb & spice butter) is used in most of the dishes I love, I realized why I love them. For example, in dishes made from 1 pound of ground beef, it is not unusual that they contain a cup of butter. A typical lentil dish pairs 2 cups of lentils with 2 cups of butter. No wonder I love it!