Thanks for the input. I thought about this situation and I've got a new theory. Hear me out... I think the spider population has been growing over the last couple years as a result of the scale problem. First, the river rock mulch has stressed the Holly shrubs, which has made them more vulnerable to scale. The scale produces honeydew. This, in turn, attracts ants to "farm" the honeydew. The spider population has been increasing to feed on the ants. Its kind of like a nasty little eco-system, so to speak. And the timeline is about right since I didn't attack the problem once I originally noticed it two years ago. Plus, I see ants traveling all over the shrubs. So anyway, as an update... I've sprayed high-powered water under most of the holly leaves to dislodge the scale. But I'm hesitant on using horticulture oils now given the sun and heat at this time of year. I'm thinking of just spraying it with the horticulture oil in the late winter/ early spring, when scale is more susceptable. Any thoughts on this? (I'll leave the spiders alone, but not their webs. Our shrubs resemble those of "The Adams Family.")

"I have noticed little clumps of webs. Not spun from leaf to leaf but more like set up as little houses on the under sides of the leaves. I have noticed that one of the plants the leaves feel very dry, not dead, just dry, and have yellowish patches on them. Is this spider mites? There are some little holes on the leaves as well." Sounds like classic spider mite sign. If you can see the webbing, you have a large amount of spider mites, and they are moving to the next plant! Take the plant AWAY from any other plant, and treat those plants as if they are infected even if you didn't see any visible sign. This is the organic way- Clip off the branches with the webbing, toss in a sealed bag into your trash. Wash each remaining leaf and stem by hand with a bit of soap and lots of water. I'd pour slightly soapy water into the pot, too, for good measure. Keep quarantined from other plants, and I'd spray leaves with soapy water every other day for a week, then every few days for another week. Or you can use neem oil instead, but it has a rather offensive odor inside. Good luck!

The rhizome contains genetic information that will duplicate the parent plant. when you take a leaf cutting, the whole reproductive process changes. Just one cell from either I, II, or III will begin the rooting process but that one cell only contains the genetic material coding for whichever layer it comes from. The rhizome contains all of the genetic information from the parent, instead of having to start from scratch at just one type of cell. many African Violets are this way, chimeras. You can reproduce the plant only if you have a full crown (with all the genetic information, including the mutation) but if you take a leaf and try to propagate a new plant, it will not be true to the parent and will lose some of that genetic coding along the way. The cells in the leaves are very simple. They are to do one thing, and one thing only. Now, the cells in the dormant buds contain a different type of cell, one with much more potential than just a leaf cell. imagine it as if the dormant buds are similar to human stem cells, they can grow into almost any type of organ or tissue. Humans can't regenerate limbs (or bodies) so that example has to stop there lol. But with starfish (sea stars!), they can grow a limb back, but if a limb is ripped off, unless it has part of that central core (body), then the arm cells don't have enough genetic information to create a new body. The difference is the TYPE of cell used in starting the plant, whether it's a "stem cell" that holds information for the whole plant or just a leaf cell that is specialized and only holds the genetic information for its layer of leaf cells. That's probably going to be really confusing. It was kind of all over the natural world lol. I love biology though, so I enjoy our conversations!

Heavenly Dark Knight is quite tall. When the scapes are young, they are blackish. Heavenly Whirly Bird has a nice flower, but the scapes often lean over. I love the curl on the sepals of One Hot Mama. Rocky Top is one of our intros. It's a good grower for us. If you like plain yellow, Tidewater Elf is a great grower. Ours has formed a huge clump, is well budded with a good scape to fan ratio. I won this as a prize on a bus tour on a region 2 summer conference and didn't think I would keep it. Now I think it has a permanent place in our garden. That's all for me. Nancy