Even if you do have grubs now is not the time to get excited about it. They are in a "dormant" life stage right now. You can spend all you want to kill them but they stopped feeding on your roots months ago. In other words, they will do no more damage. In the spring they will emerge as beetles and fly away. What matters is how many of the beetles swarm your porch light in the spring. If you get a bunch, then treat the lawn. Having said that, the treatment of milky spore is something that supposedly takes years to develop. This is almost like discussing magic with a bunch of people who really don't seem to know how the trick works. The folk lore states that milky spore must be applied every six months for years before it becomes effective. My opinion is that the beetles come and go as they please. What happened one year might not happen the next. Milky spore is a form of disease that causes the milky disease in the grubs. As was said above, if you don't have many grubs you won't know if your milky spore did anything or not. If you don't look for them, you won't know. It's all just hard to know. In any case, what happened to your neighbor is likely to have happened to you. How your yard took the attack probably depends more on your cultural practices than on anything you did or did not apply.

Pam, the magnolia tree in the picture was the champ for MS before they found a tree in Jones County that got more points - it isn't as tall as the Benndale tree, but it has a considerably bigger spread, and is the national champion. I've seen the picture of the Jones County tree, and it looks to me like two mag grands that have merged, so, as far as I'm concerned, the Benndale tree is the national champion, at least it was before the hurricane, when it had a huge canopy. I took this picture of what was left of the canopy after the storm - pitiful! Once hunting season is over and it's been dry long enough that I won't bog down on the dirt roads you have to drive on to get to the tree, I'll go see how many and how big its new branches are. Another giant swallowtail has emerged today. I keep my chrysalids in my unheated guest bedroom with the door shut, and I think the very cold weather we had followed by this warm spell has made a few of them "think" it's spring! Giant swallowtails start off life as eggs on the leaf of a member of the citrus family, which can be cultivated fruit trees, or cold hardy host plants like hops tree/ptelea trifoliata, hercules club/zanthoxylum clava-herculis, prickly-ash/z. americanum, and rue/ruta graveolens. The egg hatches out a caterpillar, which eats the leaves of its host plant until it grows to a certain size, at which point it pupates and becomes a chrysalid. Caterpillars usually wander off the host plant to a nearby tree or shrub or other structure, so chrysalids are usually found in nature somewhere close to the host plant, but my chrysalids come from caterpillars I raise myself in ventilated cages on my porch to keep them safe from predators. When I find an early instar (very small) caterpillar on the host plant, I cut the leaf with the caterpillar off (or sometimes an entire small branch) and put it in a water pick, which is a little plastic thing that you put water in to keep the cuttings fresh, sort of like little "vases." They form their chrysalids on the inside of their roomy cages - outside, a big percentage of chrysalids are lost to the ravages of the weather and predators, so keeping them inside gives me plenty to release each spring, more than would naturally occur. By keeping them in a cool/cold but not freezing room, most of them don't emerge until late February, March or April, but there are always a few that emerge too soon, like these two. Here's a picture I made last year of some pupating giant swallowtail caterpillars - the first and third things from the right are giant swallowtail chrysalids, which is what the butterfly in the picture came out of. The brown and white scrunched up caterpillars are pupating, soon to become chrysalids. Once spring has set in for good, I'll be working outside a lot, but I'm sure I'll still post on the Butterfly AND Tree Forums. Hurricane Katrina really got me into the 'tree business' and I know I'll continue to want to ask questions and share my experiences with other tree lovers. Most butterfly host plants are trees, so the two go together. On another thread on this forum where elm trees are discussed, a poster asked me why I chose one type of American elm over another type - well, shape doesn't matter too much in the woods, but elms are a host plant for question marks and several other butterflies and moths, so shape was the last thing on my mind when I ordered mine! :) And I sure hope you'll keep us posted about your big tree project, Pam! Sherry

My total packet bet is 7979.43 by the law of average, should be right on the button. Now while we wait can we talk about my poor pumpkin seeds that were so fresh when I sent them, I mean I was still turning them every hour in the sun coming thru my french doors,before bagging them. Anyway, today, to my horror, the Musque de Provence seeds were moldy green!!!!I did not figure tha tthe time from when I packed them and the time we will get our seeds back would be enough to mold them, as I din't want to treat them with chemicals or bleach but maybe I should have!!! Looked on line for answers , someone mentioned rinsing the seeds in hydrogen peroxide before drying them. I panicked and use what was close at hand , put some bleach in water and filled the little baggie with it and slooshed them around until they cleaned up a bit, then i rinsed them further with my fingers, and planted them in a peat pot to see about germination. I don't know what to tell you. It's really sad to loose these, they were beautiful pumpkins, of the brightest orange flesh. If they are really lost then I will have to make sure mine grows and distribute the seeds again thru another swap.I am so sorry about that, thought i was doing the seeds a favor by not using bleach or other chemicals...and look what happened. Chris

A fun candy to have ingredients on hand & pull out when you have a group of people hanging out together. When my kids were younger their friends loved to make this & take some home to their family. Of course, eating mistakes is part of the fun! Christmas Pretzel Reindeer Recipe *fun for kids of all ages to make & eat! You will need: Pretzels (2 inch size work better than the ones that are dollar coin size.) Melted White Chocolate/vanilla almond bark (your glue) M and Ms Whole Almonds To make a reindeer: 1. Melt some white chocolate according to directions on the package 2. Lay the pretzel on a sheet of parchment paper 3. Fill the three pretzel holes with white chocolate using a teaspoon. 4. Place matching M and Ms in the two smaller holes for eyes setting on white chocolate. 5. Place a red M and M just below the eyes, in the larger space, for the nose. 6. Put almonds for ears above the eyes and a little to the outside 7. Break pretzels to form antlers and set then between the ears. Let it set up & store in an airtight container. I couldn't find a photo of it this morning, but found one on someone's blog. The angle of the antlers make each one slightly different. Here is a link that might be useful: photo of reindeer treats