Thx for the responses guys. These creatures are a grayish black and come off very easily. a squirt of the hose and they go flying. They seem to squish very easily too. Problem is there are so many bunches of them all throughout the branches. The tree is about 15 feet tall. I tried to take pictures but the camera would not focus on them b/c they are too small. Every instance of them are in bunches, and they seem to have a few legs and some kind of antenna on the front of their head. When I try to take them off with my fingers I basically squish them without even trying. SOmetimes it's hard to see them b/c they are on the underside of the branches too Are they sucking the sap out of my cedar? I'd say about 10% of the needles turned brown and have fallen off. Will new needles replace these in teh future or will these branches remain bare for the rest of the trees life? as always thanks in advance, Chris

Wise planning! It took me years to figure out that what I saw in books might not be blooming together where I garden. Regroup your plants from the categories you showed (flowers, herbs, fruit) into bloom time categories: Early Spring, Mid Spring, Early Summer, High Summer and Fall. Pineapple Sage and Saliva Leucantha are Fall bloomers, despite a few blossoms in spring, so is Tea Camellia. Crape Myrtle starts in July, goes to frost if deadheaded. Many of the herbs are grown more for foliage than for blossoms, and can be counted on for green all spring and summer. Others, like parsley are biennial, making nice green clumps this year and going to seed next summer. The bloom of gladiolus may hinge on when they're planted, so you can make successive plantings to prolong the bloom time. Abyssinian glads bloom in fall, Byzantine glads in late spring. Different dianthus bloom at different times. Some can be coaxed into rebloom by deadheading. Tomatoes take a while to set fruit, you can count on Tomatoes after July 1. Lettuces and green peas are cool season crops. Be careful to double check with someone locally on dates for specific plants. A lily that's blooming for me in May be be blooming for Memo in July. Nell

I guess I am very fussy, but I am the same way about my roses. Some insect damage and chewed leaves I don't even notice but fungus like blackspot in the roses and fertilizer burn on my daylilies really bothers me. I almost didn't even take the picture because of the browned leaves but just could not ignore all those blooms. Then I debated with myself again before posting as those brown leaves really bother me. But in the end, the flowers really looked great and PRETTY GAUDY is a very favorite of mine.

I am not very good at mixed perenial beds, in fact I am a disaster at it. So I have a tendency to use lots of annuals. Last year I had cosmos planted up in that garden, this year snapdragons. I really like the snapdragons and the way it looks. I also have some small gladiolas that are called gammin glads planted at the end between two rows of those really late blooming Isabel Hibbard intros. I love all the extra color they are giving me and intend to buy even more of them next year to plant around the garden. del- I know you will love those Korth intros. My newer ones are just starting to bloom now but the ones I had from last year are putting on a strong show this year.