I feel just like you Cybersunday, the interior of my house has been neglected and really needs a good cleaning. Spiders have been active this summer and I can't count the cobwebs I've swept up on walls and ceilings. For me, cleaning the garden in fall depends on the weather and the amount of time I have. I prefer to clean it up now because otherwise it's a massive job in spring and since I plant spring blooming bulbs, I find that it is more attractive when the garden is cleaned. For whatever reason, the leaves on the trees haven't fallen much yet and this will be another mammoth task as we have many trees on our property. I am like Glen and Bonnie as I have loads of potted tropicals and tender perennials throughout the garden. I started to bring the orchids and begonias inside for the winter and we've been kind of lucky because we haven't had frost yet so I have a few more days to cut back all those plants. Unfortunately, I can't save them all so I take cuttings of many tenders too. Although I too use to protect my plants, I haven't in the last 8 years. It is just alot of additional work and sometimes the end result wasn't worth the trouble. My philosophy is that if I have to protect plants with burlap or leaves, then they aren't intended for this climate. There are so many beautiful hardy plants that I can grow that I no longer bother with those that I know won't survive the winter.

Kay, lindalou said that she is in western NYS. Lindalou, soaking the pot works well to flush out centipedes, millipedes, sowbugs, . Use a bit of dish soap, it does not need to be Ivory, which is no different than any other dish detergent. Spraying the plants down thoroughly with an insecticidal soap is a good idea. Using the soaking water won't be helpful for that purpose because you don't want to make that very strong. The suggestion that I really hate is her use of foggers. IN THE GARAGE. That's not only foolish and hazardous, but there's nothing on the plants that can't be washed, soaked, or sprayed off. The insideous critters like spider mites, scale insects, and whitefly won't be controlled by an insect bomb. By the way, I don't take my plants outside for the summer and this is one of the reasons.

sunshine - if Laura doesn't get back to you right away, I had whiteflies too last year - mainly outside. And since you mention it, this is apparently the time of year they start to come out. (I started getting them in late August and through September). In my case, I have a raised bed planter (VegTrug) where I have herbs and they got on the stuff in there first (despite the insect screen that I keep on it). Then since I had placed a few citrus in front of that, they migrated right to the citrus. What I did was to first spray those trees down with water, then when that dried, sprayed them with HO. Then I got those yellow sticky traps, tied them to stakes, and stuck a stake in each pot - and that included my own pepper plants that they had also migrated to. Here is a pic where you can see the sticky trap card which can be used as 1-sided or 2-sided (the pic also has a bonus monarch butterfly in it that I had released that day last September...lol) - Those sticky traps are a must because you need to get the adults in order to start breaking the cycle. I had stuck some inside my VegTrug too. These are the traps that I got (I know you are in Canada but they should have similar on Amazon there) - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01IMTVAI6/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Two25, I am very happy for you being able to leave your current job situation and take a break. A long time ago, early in my career, I was very happy to leave one job. The people I worked with and the work itself were great, but the boss at the top was awful. He had staff meetings where he rambled on for an hour and a half about nothing. He would endlessly talk about himself and what HE had been doing, as he was always on the road in DC or somewhere. It was all blah, blah, blah, and none of us could ever figure out what he had said and what it had to do with what our mission was. None of us ever really knew what he was up to as he didn’t really bring us new work. We later found out he had some nefarious deals going on, along with another supervisor who was always pretty shady too. These were government employees who were ‘reassigned’ as I found out later. I was the only female engineer and it was really hard to imagine getting ahead or promoted. I started applying for jobs and sure enough, got a call one day. I didn’t realize just how really unhappy and stuck I felt until I got into my new job. Best move I ever made.