Hi you.. I don't use the FE and Neem at once..If I have a severe break out, that is if, I use just the Neem and treat all my plants at night or early am, out from the sun.. I use the FE as a preventative which so far has worked wonders for me.. I had to use the Neem on plants I forgot to spray with FE all summer, and use it on plants that got attacked by someone else's plants infested at work.. Use them separately, Neem only with an infestation you can not get rid of, and the FE as a general spray for a preventative, although I know some that use FE and to smother the sucking insects that will not handle the oils.I spray in the am, even when the sun on them with the FE, and my plants never burn..I suppose the oil on Neem is much mr potent and stronger... Now in relation to your plants, I would spray them all with Neem only. Put a 1/2 teaspoon of soap, dish washing unless you have natural, and shake it well...Spray the underneath and tops of leaves. Spray the whole trunk, branches and pots.. If Rhizzo sees this thread, she may have a bit more to add.. DO NOT SPRAY this Neen oil during the hot part of the day, Tonight is good, and so is the am..I wish you had coco wet..I put this in everything to help improver sticking and wetting of anything I ned to stay on the leaves.. After a few days, start spraying down your plants at least once a week with FE.. Let us know what you do and take pictures, ok..:-) Mike

flound, Thanks for clarifying your position. Your original post left me with the impression that anyone else who makes a long range predicition automatically is above reproach, and only Farmer's Almanac was suspect. As you say, it's tough enough for them to get it right for the next 3 to 5 days, much less 2 to 3 months. Any long range predictions certainly need to be taken with a large grain of salt. Weather forecasting is not an exact science, probably won't be for the foreseeable future. The best they can do is make a SWAG (scientific wild-a@@ guess). As for looking for a religious argument, no thank you. I don't care for that either and honestly don't even know where you got that from. My only point is that your very approach to this is also your 'fail-safe': If they get it wrong, it's a case of "See, I told you so"....but if they get it right, all you have to do is take a step back and say "Well, even fortune tellers and psychics get it right at least some of the time". By the same token, I could use the very same argument, but in reverse, to defend my position. We can both agree that any forecast beyond a few days is being 'out on a limb'. As stated in my previous post, a prediction is just that. Not a foregone conclusion or absolute fact. As for what I believe, I believe I'll look at the long range forecasts, hope for the best but prepare for the worst. I honestly feel that we are not going to get off as lightly this winter as we did last year. If that turns out to be wrong, I'll certainly come back here next spring and say so. Whatever comes our way this winter, we, and our palms, will just have to deal with it. As oppalm alluded to, Mother Nature is gonna do what she wants to do. She has her own schedule and doesn't pay much attention to the predictions : )

Well, Alisande, during a flu outbreak, every one should wash their hands multiple times a day. But I do not think this administration engineered a swine flu outbreak to push a health care bill, as has been suggested. Nor do I believe this was some sort of terrorist attack. That was suggested up-thread. The Center for Disease Control (CDC), and the World Health Organization (WHO) have been totally transparent in their tracking of this disease. Case zero has been discovered - we know where it came from. It was a child living near a pork factory in Mexico. He got ill and recovered, but not before passing the virus on to others. No conspiracy.

Yes! I was really freaked out when I first noticed it! My heart just sunk. I had worked for weeks getting the bottom on this pool perfect, just perfect. I wanted those expensive ColorLogicLEDs to look perfect when reflecting across this glassy smooth pool bottom (OK, maybe it wasn't glassy smooth, but those lights were all I could think about when I was troweling it on!) This pool bottom was really really smooth. But unfortunately I couldn't drop the liner in immediately due to the irregular pool shape. The liner had to be custom measured (using point-to-point) and custom made. It was supposed to take 2 weeks to get here, but the manufacturer ended up taking nearly 2 months!! By then the weather had turned cold. We left standing water in the pool bottom and around the pool itself. The water was freezing and thawing (both on top of, and underneath the surface) which cracked the pool bottom. We never even realized it until it was too late. However just before we drop in the liner, we are going to COMPLETELY remove those "cracked" sections with a sledge hammer, and totally replace it with a new bottom in those places. Can anyone think of anything better to do? (short of demolishing the whole thing) What would you do if this was a liner replacement? My biggest concern with the moving sections was not just to repair them, but to determine what caused them in the first place. The "Good News" was that I'm fairly certain that it was the standing water/freeze/thaw conditions that created the problem. By knowing that, I can redirect the water, let the soil dry out, and then feel confident that repairing the section will work. I'm just a simple DIYer, so I may be missing something here. That's one of the reasons that I'm posting it. Can anyone think of a better way to handle it? Would it be helpful to add rebar in those sections? (I wouldn't think so, as the rest of the pool doesn't have it.) This pool bottom seems really fragile. The directions for the installation say to only walk on it with soft bottomed shoes, don't spray water from a hose directly on it, etc. When I work with the portland cement/sand mix, I feel like I'm building a giant sandcastle! It's not at all strong like cement or even mortar. My personal feeling is that the sooner the liner is on it the better. My mistake seems to be letting Old Man Winter get here in between finishing the bottom, and dropping in that liner! Please keep the suggestions comin'!! -Renee