I'm very annoyed by the fact that when the heat of the summer arrives, I will have bare/brown spots left by the POA annua while at the same time, I will be unable to seed because of the heat. Soooo... I'm going to conduct an "experiment" (I probably subconsciously recall this experiment from 3rd grade science class). I started some pans of sod (the disposable aluminum pans used for cooking); poked some drainage holes in them and filled them with soil/organic material and spread seed. I now have one pan that is completely filled in with thick grass that I am using on other areas in need of some patching where seed did not initially take (I cut to size and fill in). Thus far, there is one or two small weeds in the pan of turf, but no POA (give it time, I'm sure). I will time the others so they are ready for laying just about the time the POA dies off. Would it be easier to just buy sod when I need it? Probably, but there's just something about growing your own and having it on hand (and matching the existing turf) when you need it during the POA war. And, if it works (probably a big "if"), I won't be so miffed about not being able to overseed in the fall when the pre-emergent goes down. Obviously, if your yard is large with a sizable infestation of POA, going this route would be an exercise in futility. But, if you will only be left with a few bare spots come summer, it might be worth a try.

I'd like to clarify something here. The Bayer Rose & Flower spray in the photo IS a systemic. That's rather unusual for a spray - most sprays only work on contact. This particular spray kills on contact, but it is also absorbed by the leaves, so that when any pests that didn't get sprayed start sucking on the plant's fluids, they get poisoned. From the photo, it looks like you have mealy, or perhaps it could be some sort of scale, or both. Doesn't matter. Mealy actually is a type of scale, so the treatment is the same regardless. jennie, your infestation looks pretty bad, so I would isolate this plant in another room for a month or so and wash your hands well after you handle it before tending to other plants. It is probably a good idea to unpot it, sterilize the pot, clean up the plant with alcohol, and then spray with the Rose & Flower spray. But at that point, I think you would be OK to repot with clean, new media and water as normal. You need to go back and respray at whatever intervals the directions say. I don't have mine handy, but I think it says something like spray 3 times, 7 to 10 days apart. The reason you want to do this is to make sure you kill all the generations of bugs. These guys reproduce very quickly, and the eggs and some stages of the scale life cycle are very resistant to pesticides. So you have to spray again to catch them after they hatch, or when they are juvenile crawlers, or whatever. Why didn't your other plants get it? The pests probably came in with your infected orchid, but they were small and only a few, so you didn't see them until the problem had escalated. I had an orchid from a good seller that sat in my dining room for months and suddenly broke out with mealy. Luckily, it hadn't joined my collection of 40-odd orchids yet, so the mealy didn't spread. But that's why a quarantine of a new plant is always a good thing. I would watch your existing plants carefully over the next year - the mealy may show up on them too. If you want to be extra careful, spray all your orchids, not just the infected one, or at least spray the ones that were next to it. Mealy and scale are tough opponents, but IF you follow the schedule on the spray bottle, you should triumph. Oh, and I would cut off the flower spike altogether while this is going on. The mealy are already stressing out your plant, the flowers are only requiring extra energy that it needs to fight the pests.

snip and drip ... snip it off at ground level.. apply 100% [which is actually 41%] roundup or generic.. on the snipped part.. use the handy .. expensive applicator at the link for precise application of ONE DROP .. ken Here is a link that might be useful: link

Thank you. Actually sounds like the kind of plant I would have planted and completely forgot about. May try to find a better spot for it instead of passing it along. Has anyone used it medicinally (and how)?