Kirk..Are you talking about your new fish? IMO it is sometimes what they have been used to eating versus a new kind of food. My fish will eat anything, but prefer floating pellets because that is what I give them. They don't like to have to find them on the bottom. They will eat sinking pellets, if I drop them slowly. My daughters fish only will eat sinking pellets, because that is what they are used to. They seem to like scrounging around on the bottom for their food. Your new fish also need to adjust to a new invironment. You can give them cooked green peas minus the skin of the peas. Hope they start eating soon for you. Glenda

The main wave of DED hit this area in the '70's. Our city alone was removing atound 1000 diseased elms a year, for around 10-15 years! This was just on city property-not trees in yards etc. For quite a few years after the main carnage had taken place, there were some really nice, large Am. Elms left here and there. I remember in particular, one that stood in one of our parks. When it did get sick and eventually had to be removed, we measured it-122 ft. tall! There was clear trunk for about 55 ft. before first branch. Anyway, I watched as one by one, these "possibly resistant" trees all succumed to the disease. Damn! Still, there's no certainty that what you're describing might not have resistance. I'd talk to tree people in your area to see if someone can't check it out. +oM

You folks are great!! Thanks for the great suggestions! The field beside me is corn and the farmer does his spraying in the spring. But it doesn't seem to affect the butterfly population because I still see them flying over my house many times a day. I have told different people that I'm going to put up a sign that reads, 'Butterfly Crossing' because they fly the same path all the time. I have a pond nearby (with frogs-they jump into the speedwell and eat the cabbage whites) and 2 birdbaths, stepping stones for sunbathing, and full sun. I think one problem could be that the plants are not grouped together. I have for instance 2 clumps of shasta daisies in different sections instead of together as 1 large clump. I also have a birdfeeder in that area, but have never seen the little song birds go after the bf's. I've planted butterfly weed twice and each time it never came back the following spring. Oh well, I'll just keep trying things. My hubby said I can make a new sunny bed so I'm definitely going to try some of your suggestions in that one!! Thanks so much!!

I find it hard or nearly impossible to over-fertilize a Meyer; but of course that doesn't apply to container plants. You should be fertilizing your Meyer with a fertilizer in the 3-1-2 ratio for best results; and the mix should include Magnesium, Calcium, Iron, Zinc, and maybe Copper. I use a fertilizer specially blended for me at 18-6-12 and the above minerals; each mature producing tree gets 3 pounds of that mix per year... trees producing 400 lemons per year. I also give them a shot of chelated mineral mix once per year, sort of an insurance policy as I don't know for sure they need it. One thing I do know is if you give a Meyer an overdose of Nitrogen, it will dump the flowers in favor of growing pretty green leaves.