What you saw where baby spiders, not spider mites. I have red baby spiders all over my yard right now too. They do no harm, spiders eat aphids and mosquitoes. I welcome them. Spider mites are not common here and certainly not this early this year after all that rain. Spider mites cause damage that you can easily see long before you can see their webs and the mites themselves which are almost microscopic. When I go to Phoenix or Palm Springs I can see spider mite damage from the car driving around town, they are very common there and very easy to spot their damage. Not something I ever see here except in my greenhouse where I brought them in on a houseplant and even then they are not red. They are green because they are two spotted spider mites. Spider mites are always found underneath the leaves they are on and not out in plain sight where you could see them without a magnifying glass. The post you answered is four years old. Spider mites can be controlled but it can be difficult in hot dry areas where they are common. Not knowing what your pest is and just spraying willy nilly is a really really bad idea. People, pets and wildlife are poisoned by insecticides and fungicides sprayed incorrectly all the time. I wish they would ban more of them than they have already. It is scary how few people read labels and follow them and really know what they are doing.

Separate threads would be better, but here we are. Shanesirish5, if you are nervous about the plant's health from chopping a large branch, don't be. If you are concerned about the balance and look of the plant in the future, it's hard for me to recommend that level of pruning through pictures. If you could start a relationship in a local bonsai club, you would probably find someone willing to look at the plant in person and give recommendations. I'm guessing this specimen would rate that kind of attention and effort based on what you've said. Spiritdancer2020, you can use the search tool here for 'gritty mixes'. You'll get a book's worth of manifold opinions, probably all of which work well for jades. At the VERY LEAST, a simple solution that keeps you from having to find a variety of ingredients (if time, money, desire are issues), buy a bag of cactus and succulent soil from a local garden center, a bag of perlite, and mix the two in equal measure. There's no indication where you live, so if getting any of these materials is difficult, tell us where you live and we can try to help. A friend of mine in Indonesia can't get what many of us would call common ingredients, but he is successful with builder's gravel and backyard soil. ez

Sheri, Something tells me it is going to be a bad grasshopper year, at least for those of us in rural to semi-rural areas. Maybe it is because I started seeing full-sized grasshoppers back in January or February (way too early!). I apply Nolo Bait by putting on a pair of latex medical-type gloves and scattering it by hand on the plants inside the veggie garden. When I have to put it in the pasture, which I haven't had to do in several years, I mow the pasture first (not required, but I think it makes it easier for the hoppers to find the Nolo Bait) and then also scatter it by hand. I don't strive for perfectly even coverage in the pasture, because as mobile as grasshoppers are, I feel like they will find it. I met some people west of Fort Worth once who lived in Parker County who told me they have so many hoppers in their pastures that they buy the Nolo Bait in 50-lb. bags (imagine the expense!) and I wonder how they spread it--surely not by hand? If your pasture area is large, and you don't want to go to the expense of trying to cover all the pastures, just spread the Nolo in a band 10 to 20' all along your fence lines. I always have tons more hoppers out in the fields, and the guineas take care of them. So far, the guineas have never let me down. One guinea can eat 2 lbs. of grasshoppers a day, so even a small flock of guineas can make quite a dent in the grasshopper population. My guineas eat all morning until they are either tired or full, then lay down in the shade of the big pecan tree in the front yard and "rest" until early evening. At about 5 p.m., they get their second wind and go through the whole yard and pasture area a second time, eating their "dinner". In a really, really bad year, though, as the grasshoppers migrate from farm to farm and field to field, even the guineas can't really keep up. In years like that, I use a lot of jars of molasses water near my plantings (as traps) and I use a chemical bait called EcoBran in my pastures. I've linked the bait below. You know I don't like to use chemicals, but sometimes you have to, and EcoBran is designed to be less toxic to wild critters OTHER THAN hoppers. Nolo Bait is GREAT in general, but it works best on grasshoppers in the smallest instars (when the hoppers are roughly 1/4" to 1/2" or maybe 3/4" long). For the bigger hoppers that migrate in from elsewhere full-grown, some DO die from ingesting Nolo Bait either directly or by cannabilizing hoppers who died after eating Nolo. Others don't, though, hence the need for a chemical bait. In our worst grasshopper year since we moved here, the hoppers were chewing on our fiberglass window screens, cotton throw rugs on the porch, lawn furniture cushions, tree bark.....etc. They even ate the peaches on the trees, leaving only the pits hanging there. If we ever have that kind of year again (and this year might be it, you never know), I will spray my veggies with kaolin clay (sold as surround). It makes the garden and your plants look dusty and dirty, but it works. On the linked page, the Ecobran link is at the bottom of the grasshoppper page. I hate grasshoppers! Dawn

Pothos is on standby in case nothing else works :) I already have 4 color variations in the room will less light.. You see, one of the goals is to grow a number of different plants throughout the apartment and so I'm trying to discover something new and maybe try a path less traveled :) Something beyond the typical "top 10"... The blue star fern is too asymmetrical and messy to make allusions to a cartoon character :) It doesn't even look like a stereotypical "fern". But I do worry that once it spreads out a few more of the adult leaves, it will be touching the sides and look trapped up there..