The entire east coast is suffering from fungal lawn diseases. Brown patch is the most likely candidate, but with hot, humid weather, and long periods of lawn moisture, it is creating an ideal environment for most summer diseases. Good cultural practices, proper watering, fertilizing, and mowing, can go a long way in preventing fungal diseases, and there are some organic/biologic preventative measures which help, but even with all that, diseases will rear their ugly heads when conditions are very favorable. Your June seeding, with the daily waterings certainly didn't help matters, and young grass is certainly more susceptible to disease. Green and lush looks great to you and pathogenic fungi. Right now the only way to prevent spread and new disease would be to apply a fungicide. Even though your grass is brown, that doesn't mean it needs a good soak, in fact that will help spread fungus. Watering your lawn should not be a daily thing. Once or twice a week, deep and infrequent is the key. Also when you are expecting days of rain, it would help to cut it before the rain, bagging the clippings, and cutting a bit shorter than usual. The good news is that most of the foliar diseases like brown patch don't kill off grass. It will kill the blades, but if the crowns remain intact, then most of it should return in the fall. Some diseases are root diseases, and those tend to kill grass. Pythium blight is a common one, especially on new grass. Pennington sun and shade probably contains some perennial rye, tall fescue, Kentucky bluegrass and fine fescue. Tall fescue is particular sensitive to brown patch, even some of the newest most resistant cultivars. Kentucky bluegrass does better against BP, but since your lawn is somewhat shady, and KBG takes a long time to establish, I would bet you don't have much of that in your lawn.

M3D's, this is the first time I've seen a pic of your bathroom. How beautiful and charming it is! I especially love your wall sconces, medicine cabinet and all your lovely transferware. The Queensway fabric looks like it'll work wonderfully with your loveseat for Spring. Just how close are you to Spring up there in Maine, anyway? I've heard it comes June-late there. I've always been taken with your Winter mantle. With the metal wreath, it looks like it could easily grace any magazine cover. BTW, did you make that wreath?!? I don't recall ever seeing another one like it. It's elegantly simple and I love it. And then the lamps . . . I am SUCH a lampaholic that I literally drool over your beautiful ones! Your newest find is such fun. It'll certainly brighten up your study when it arrives. Don't forget to post pics when you get it. And it looks as though you've finished the barley twist ones. What a great idea that was! As for the Chinoiserie, I can see from your picture that they're terribly jealous and upset that they're being replaced by the barley twists. I think what they need is a respite away from those little upstarts for a while, don't you? To New Mexico, perhaps? Lynn ;^P

Sara, like Rina has said get a bag of perlite it will help with drainage tremendously:). Miracle Gro succulent mix has peat moss in it. Peat is not good for cactus. It can really hold on to moisture. Then on the opposite side if left to dry out it becomes hydrophobic. Reminds me of trying to get styrofoam wet. The water just will never absorb. I haven't bought perlite in awhile because I'm able to get my hands on pumice, but I'm pretty sure it's cheap. You should be able to find it at WalMart. If not there Home Depot or Lowes. Perlite will help drain the water and keep the soil from getting compact. I'm sure you will use the perlite in no time because I have a feeling you've got the succulent bug;).

Happy to suggest. If you see any spider webbing, the situation is probably ongoing at this time and treatment is probably worthwhile. You can rinse them off with water, &/or with cotton balls damp with rubbing alcohol. The wiping might be easier since they are going to congregate on the bottoms of the leaves. Turning a plant of this size upside-down to rinse the bottoms of leaves looks more difficult to me. The collection of white spots (called stippling) that they cause can't be removed from the leaves, so that is why one can't tell just by seeing the stippling if there are mites now, or if they were there before but are now gone. If you are able to put your plant outside for a summer vacation, there is no need to worry about them during that time unless you live in a place with very low humidity. I only ever get SM's on plants when they are inside for winter. Whenever moving a plant from inside to outside, be careful about letting the leaves get sunburned. This can be avoided by starting the plant in the first or last couple hours of direct sun of the day, with shade for the rest of the time. As far as plant pests go, I don't consider SM's scary because they're so easy to thwart & seasonal in their appearance/behavior in my climate. If left unchecked, they can eventually kill a plant, so I inspect for the spider webbing periodically & take action against them when needed. These tips aren't specific to Scheff, and should work well for any plant that does not have fuzzy leaves. I've never put alcohol on any kind of fuzzy leaf. If your plant gets too tall, it can be trimmed. At this point, you could nip the newest leaf that is forming, and this could cause it to start making side branches, which could drastically slow its' upward mobility.