I dug up 'hardy pampas' last fall- dug out every root I could get- some had gone under the foundation! and left the bare hole and any unseen roots to the -20 weather over the winter. It was an eyesore when the plant was there-is an eyesore with it gone but it is gone!I need to put a nice grass in there soon. Karen

I have chickens. When I pick bugs, the gals (and a few guys) thank me profusely when I toss those sorts of goodies to them. Trust me......even a tiny insectivorous bird can deal with a hornworm. I was watching out my kitchen window when I saw a catbird tearing into something large under the aristolochia trellis. It dawned on me that a hummer had nested in there and I was watching the catbird tearing off wings. I shot out the door to stop the carnage and scared the bird away and looked down at a body without upper appendages..........sort of like a tiny Venus di Milo, laying on its back kicking. The presence of six legs reassured me it was just a very large cicada. I walked away and the catbird came back and finished dismembering it.

Josh that is a good idea. Maybe I will dig them myself. I juuussst have to find a place to put them. She has them trimmed square. Maybe I can talk her into moving them someplace else in her yard. She has roses and hosta planted between them so I do not think she would trust a stranger not to damage her other plants. Some of them are 4 ft tall and some are 3 feet tall with the sizes alternated. They actually would make a LOVELY hedge if planted closer together.

If you think that is amazing think about this. I have been an Amateur radio (ham radio) operator since 1975 and my favorite mode of operation is morse code. In order to increase our operating speed generally when sending morse code we drop all the vowels out of the words and in addition we have certain two or three character groups that take the place of words. By example, in morse code we HI HI to laugh in the same manner as LOL is used online and rather than send the word "and" we send "es". On top of that, we have a long set of Q codes that are three letter groups beginning with Q that mean entire phrases, such as QRZ= who's calling me,,,,QTH means my location is... QRM= I am having trouble receiving you because of electronic noise on the freqency..QRN= I am having trouble receiving you because of atmospheric conditions. When we first begin receiving morse code we frantically copy each character and write it down, then try to sort through it to figure out the meaning, but with practice we reach a point where we hear the three or four letter groups as complete words and seldon have to write any of it down. For those of you who feel you have re-invented the wheel with the abbreviations you use in texting, allow me to show you a line amateur radio traffic as it would be transcribed from morse code: KA5QLD DE KC8UXZ RRR GE OM ES TNX FER CL/UR RST 599 599/NAME HERE DICK DICK /QTH MASSACHUSETTS/ WX OVCST ES LT RAIN/ SO HOW CPY NW ? KC8USZ KN