? Are any cactus known to be allelopathic to other plants ? The cactii I have do get some intense rains sometimes, we are semi-arid in terms of moderate total tropical rainfall. Of course their rock perch gives immediate drainage. I was thinking of innoculating lava rock pieces for hydroponic growing & also, as a container medium alternative to perlite/crushed granite ingredients. On Hispaniola Island we have a different cactus that is used as a living thorn hedge. It is a variety that can grow 2 stories high, fills in dense so livestock do not pass & eventually shades out other under-story plants. Yet, it is decidedly benign to other vegetation alongside it & does not kill off established accacia trees it over-runs. (Our thankfully non-poisonous snakes like to harbor in this. So it is going out of favour to use near dwellings, since most everybody in the countryside has free ranging chickens around, & frequently in the house.) The cactus of my original post that are found on the island's volcanic outcrops is more like people's pet house cactii varieties, skinny spikes maybe getting knee high. I just assumed they are niche adapted, rather than allelopathic to vegetative plants whose seeds don't carry the same endobacteria .

lies? truth? this really is driving me insane..I leave to pick up the kids in a couple minutes from school..I'm going to have to ask my son what he thinks, he is so good at riddles. He solved that one from Einstein, that supposedly only 2% of people can solve..he did it in 10 minutes!

I've been holding off on adding to this discussion and I'm still afraid I might be premature. The whole "boiling" the plants doesn't make a lot of sense to me. It seems like cutting off someone's head because they have a sore throat. Nematodes do harm the looks and the "catching" part is disturbing but for most of the year they are fine. I decided on trying the less extreme suggestion of using the soap and mouthwash. I think this was suggested by Donna? It was a few years ago anyway. I only had a hand full of plants with the nematodes so I picked the leaves off as they showed up and sprayed the plants with a pint sized spray bottle of the mixture. The next year I started earlier when the plants came up and tried to do it more often but I realized at the end of last year that I'd used only 2 to 3 of the small spray bottles over the summer to repeat treat the dozen or so plants that showed the nematodes. While none of them got worse and some slightly better, it dawned on me that this was likely not enough. This year I started out early in the spring, as soon as the eyes were up a few inches. I mixed the stuff in a 4 litter (half gallon?? I hate metric) plastic milk jug - 2 at a time. I DRENCHED the soil all around the emerging plants. I was good about doing the treatment every 2 or 3 weeks for quite a while. I think I did it at the beginning of July and should have done another treatment part way through the month but ran out of the soap. I got some soap the other day and treated them again yesterday. I've been checking daily for any sign of nematodes. What I found was nematodes on a wild Solomon's Seal that is showing right now. There is also evidence on a couple other hostas that I did not treat this year because I either forgot they had it or didn't notice it last year. I have an Albo Marg. directly below the infected Solomon's Seal. It is one I've treated and it is showing no signs so far. I doubt I even looked at the Solomon's Seal and realized that was probably where it came from originally since the Hosta had been in place for years. So far, and it is a bit early, none of last years infected plants are showing ANY signs. The fact that it is showing up in other, untreated plants makes me hope that I'm making progress. I had a hard time finding a picture of an infected plant from last year to see the date it was visible but the Grand Tiara definitely showed it on Aug 8. As of today the rest are all still clear. I guess I'll know in the next few weeks. Solomon's Seal he next two Albo Marg. are not the one I was talking about above. They are two different, untreated this year, plants.

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