Ugh, saw my first Japanese beetle today. I hate them so much! I guess I'll be up bright and early tomorrow morning, picking them off the roses and crape myrtle and dropping them into soap water. I used milky spores last year, but I know it takes a few years for them to take effect.
Yardening Summer 2013
I found some in the pool and I have seen their telltale damage on some of my large leaf plants.
My Toad has actually adopted my clay pot home....he has been sitting by it all day.
I raised the pot up a bit so he can get in under it--and fed it a nice earthworm...
The pot sits under the legs of my little 5' aluminum folding ladder.
Maybe he will never leave now....Geez! What am i doing??????
G.
Gita -- you are so kind! What a lovely toadhouse!
I like the toads that hang out below the entry lights that are left on all night at the condos where I deliver the paper. They are better than bug zappers! As kids we had toads as 'pets' and would toss bugs to them.
Gita, the Cane Toads we had in Hawaii were huge, 5 inches and up! See pic #1
It would be more likely that yours is a Fowlers Toad which is native to MD and adapts to urban/suburban living. Is its under belly one color or spotted?
Fowlers Toad http://wakeaudubon.org/wordpress/?p=327
Glad you all have adopted each other! Toads can live 5 or more years.
Is that the toad that is creating such a big problem in Fl in the last few years?
Here's Fowlers Toad. brown form
Yes it is Holly
Judy--(we cross posted)
The above picture was taken in Australia and is of the biggest Cane Toad ever caught.
It was in the link I posted above. There was a You-Tube clip too.
My Toad does not look like the toad in the link you posted. It is orange/ beige and had a huge mouth.
Maybe in this 1st picture I took you can see the colors better? G.
This message was edited Jun 25, 2013 8:33 PM
Gita, thankfully cane toads haven't come north of FL (yet). Eastern American toads can be more brownish, more olive, or more red-brown (like brick or the adobe color of yours). Fowler toads have stronger markings. If your toad seems to be somewhere in between those two varieties, that may well be the case, as this site says they might interbreed: http://www.dnr.state.md.us/wildlife/Plants_Wildlife/herps/Anura/Toads.asp
Going to do my other yardening, before it gets too hot I hope. I should take some pics. It's a suburban lot and pretty nice.
I was weeding and mowing out there and it was VERY comfortable. Then I came in to pot up some plants near utility sink in the mud room. The carton with the watersorb crystals broke and spilled into the sink and now the drain is VERY STOPPED UP!! Took off the trap, but the blockage is beyond that. Now amount of power plunging is working. Need to go and look for the snake.
Oh Roses, how terrible!
Wonder if a wet/dry vac taped to pipe after trap might help? Might just suck some of that water absorbed in crystals and loosen them layer by layer. My thoughts would be to remove as much 'absorb' as possible as it won't be good for any of the rest of the plumbing system. Good luck.
Can you just walk away from it for a few days until it dries? On the other hand, the worry is that it will expand so much it will damage the pipe. Is there a drain trap under the sink you can remove?
yuck. momma told me there'd be days like those!
Here's my other yarden, well it's actually my in-laws. My FIL enjoys doing what he can as far as the lighter jobs. He can trim his Forsythia and quince, but the yews and rhodo are too much. He does some of the trimming with his electric string trimmer and blows the leaves. Holly helps with most of the planting.
Teri. I'd see if you can open a cleanout in the basement and use a shopvac te pull the crystal back through the drain as you snake it loose. That stuff may cause problems with your septic system. You may even want to contact the manufacture to see if anything would speed up the breakdown, possible something like vinegar or dilute muratic acid.
Did everyone else just jump to a half screen? If so it must be Dave's
Ric,
It is really messed up right now. I thought maybe my account needed to be renewed. Pretty disappointed with DG right now. I have actually had the "Home" icon gone for a month or two now, sometimes just a ? pops up where the icon is/was.
They made changes in the site, put up a new "look" you have to go in and clear your browser's cache.
You can read about it here.
http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/1320870/
I just saw it too---tried to get to the Thread the usual way--and everything was garbled...
I thought--OH, NO!!! My screen is all messed up!!!
Restarted my Computer--and then, when I opened DG, there it was!!! ALL NEW!
As with all changes--I will have to absorb this for a bit before I decide if I like it...
Now--I will read the link Holly just posted above. G.
It is still pretty miserable on the mobile browsers.
Aha! Mobil browsers wrought this mess. I was happy enough before, especially if they could have worked the inconsistencies out of the last photo/ back to the post feature.
It is working just fine with a cache and cookie clear now. I had no problems with the old format.
To me--this new page looks too clean--like it is missing...something
I guess I liked it a bit "junked up"...
Everything is working for me, though...all I did was restart my "C"--maybe I need to go
find where to clear out the catche...Tools--I think?
G.
There were brown beetles all over my daylilies today. They weren't shiny like Japanese beetles. Do I need to pick off these beetles as well? Are they harming the daylilies?
do the dayliies look chewed on?
Not at all. The blooms are looking really pretty!
maybe the beetles were eating pollen.
Oh I didn't know some beetles were pollen eaters! Hmm... Need to take pics...
Hope you can show them I am curious.
Last year I had a horrible struggle with brown beetles (asiatic garden beetles?) that would appear at dusk and eat leaves . This year, haven't seen a bit of that damage.
With all this rain and humidity the weeds are starting to take over, I have been able to get out there at all
Saw a couple of Japanese Beetles on the roses yesterday. I hope they drowned in the downpour we had last night, but I doubt it.
I haven't seen any of the "Red Lily Beetles" yet, but I think it was Allison who saw some and she's not too far from me.
Just wanted to put the word out that I am having some major probs with "New Look" as a number of
features simply do not work any longer. Have stsarted a thread and alerted ADMIN but wanted to
let you all know why my postings maybe more scant than usual.
My daughter and I have a running joke that the things we like are the ones most often deleted or
discontinued! Or, put another way, "If you find a pair of shoes that you really like, go back
immediately and buy a second pair, because by the time the first pair wears out, they will no longer be available.!
Like any yardener woth his or her salt, I will learn to live with what ever changes come my way, like a
yard going from sunny to shady as trees mature and back to sunny as they die.
the only thing I don't like about it is the dull off white colors, I'm a gardener I like COLOR!!!
Update for the Watersorb Crystals that went down the drain. NOTHING could move them and the snake went right thru the jelly mass without moving it out of the way. At this time, the pipe is sawed away, soon to be replaced by a new piece. Those crystals take on a new meaning to me when I see them in the shed. They'll never get near the house again.
Can't help but chuckle about your last remark. Sorry about the predicament you were in. It might make a good horror movie, though.
Yikes! I'll have to make sure to keep mine outside!
wow Teri how aggravating
I agree Jen, Kind of blah. Crisp and clean and boring........
RRR, What a mess.
All is well with the plumbing now. I wonder if it will have much affect on the septic system. I think most of the crystals came out when they used the brush that cleans the lint from the dryer. Luckily the pipe was cut off in the right spot!! The stuff was lodged many feet from the sink drain halfway into the basement.