Hey Root, I was just wondering what ever happened to you. I started to send you a D-mail to see if you were still alive!
Kell, did I tell you that Sexy Lady survived Bleu stepping on her? She is about 6 inches tall!! Your brugs always look so beautiful and full of flowers(you don't have wind do you?)
Hurricane Rita blew bugs in here too, some I've never seen before and lots of gnats, they are everywhere, even in Walmart when I went there the other night.
Sexy Lady
Welcome back Root, what did you do all summer? You have been missed.
Kell, if you happen to have a spare, I would love a cutting of this one. Calla, I use tomato cages around my small things that I'm trying to protect from rabbits (and I live in the middle of town) and squirrels. Maybe that would protect them from Blue too.
Yesterday, my mailman asked for Sexy Lady out of all the brugs in the front I have growing. He said he has never seen such flowers.
Susie, 6 inches in months and months. Not bad. LOL That Bleu!! And oh yes, it was you, Susie, who I was talking to about Root!! We both missed you, Root!!
I am going to take some cuttings Linda when she stops flowering.
On the Mountain Dew Sherry, does that kill them or do you put poison in it?
Please put my name on one of them.
On the Mountain Dew, looks like it's added to a chemical, I guess the sugar attracts the bugs "my old gardening guru had me use Thiodan, four tablespoons per gallon, with 1/2 of a Cherry (Code Red) Mountain Dew and spray, and continue to spray until they are gone,"
Kell, six inches is better than dead, lol. I thought she was gone, planted more stuff in the area. The wind messed up a big hibiscus acetosella and when I was cutting it out, I found her, still alive.
Linda, Bleu would just knock over the tomato cage(or pull it up and carry it around the yard, he's a bad bad doggie). He broke some of my coleus the other day. He said it was my fault, I left him inside the fence while I went to visit the neighbor. I petted their dog and he KNEW it, so he stepped on my flowers!
The Cherry (Code Red) Mountain Dew goes in the poison and draws the thrips to it, they swarm to it and it's poison, I'm glad they are that stupid. If I ever get a chance, I'm going to sit out some CMD with thiodan in it and see if they will swarm to the container. The are the worse bugs I've ever encountered. There have been lots of stories about Katrina and Rita carring bugs LOTS of places, Arky wasn't the only hit.
Kell, I'd love a piece of Sexy Lady if they are not all taken!!
She's beautiful, Kell! You can stick a cutting in my box, too, if you're cutting her back!
Susie, Bleu needs to be taught to be careful of plants! My german shepherd spent many Saturdays walking around nurseries on a leash. He loved meeting people, and quickly learned that he was supposed to watch out for the plants. He would even point out knocked over plants for me to stand back up. One wonderful benefit was that he learned to stay away from mud! I didn't even realize it at the time, but when we would start down an aisle with mud, I would turn him away saying 'we can't go there, yucky mud'. Pretty soon, I could steer him to the side, telling him to watch out for the yucky mud. Now he doesn't even get in the mud at our house, he goes around it!
Susie, I love Bleu and I'm betting he is not as 'bad' as you post, what a sweet boy he is!! My Katrina evacuees have three dogs, three cats and two birds. My dog Blueray, weighs 75 lbs, standard Golden size, and the three doggie guests are 15 lbs, 25 lbs, and 30 lbs, all three do not weigh as much as Blueray, but, boy, do they not know about brugs, or what, lol. And, to make matters worse, the cats use the brugs for a scratching post. That scared me so badly that we stopped that immediately - heaven knows, I'd hate for them to live past Katrina and then come down with Brug Fever, while here. Whew!! We nipped that in the bud, the first day...ugh, even cats will mind if you use the right words to direct them, lol...
Sherry, I have to admit, Bleu is not bad. He uses the rock paths in the garden most of the time. Every now and then he has a relapse(like yesterday, he saw a garden snake and just had to investigate and his big foot stepped on a canna) He knows when he's been bad, he will sit and look sooooooo pitiful then roll over on his back with his feet in the air.
BTW, did I tell you about the time he ran the lawn mower over my gingers? Squished them with the wheels!(Kell tried to say I was the one who did it, just blaming it on Bleu, but I would never frame him like that)
If Bleu could only talk. He would tell us it is Suz who is the plant killer. He is so innocent!! LOL. He has been framed, I tell you!! He is Susie's heart. She is so in love with that doggie.
Sherry, how did you stop your cats from using the brugs as scratching posts? Odd, my cats use mine too. I have some with deep scratches on the trunks. Scars! I wonder if there is something in the bark that attracts them.
I forgot to add - I do not cut my brugs back in fall for it just stimulates them to grow in the winter when their new growth rots too easily in the rainy season and gets frost bitten. I usally cut them back in the spring. But I sure will go back and look for who wanted them.
Kell would I frame poor Bleu??? It's those big feet and floppy ears of his that get him in trouble in the garden.
My cats like to scratch on the brugs! They shred the bark.
Stopping cats from doing anything one doesn't want them to do is difficult, which of course you know. My cats only go to the large trunked brugs, and I've never seen them scratch or found signs unless I'm with them - my cat guru (my brother) tells me that scratching is up there close to purring, means they are happy and content. I wrapped chicken wire around the trunks in question, about a 4 or 5 inch band, and I put them exactly the height of where they scratched - they stretch out when they scratch and it left no place, so they've gone back to the trees, oak/pecan. I already had the wire, left over from an escape artist litter of Golden babies and i had strong scissors that cut the wire easily. I used my craft wire pliers and turned back the wire, so it would not scratch the cats and put it on the brugs and the cats quit, and had no interest in the smaller trunked brugs. I only put the wire around the really big trunked brugs, but the deal is to watch the brugs closely because some small trunked brugs become fat trunked 'overnight'. When I first noticed the unusual marks, I thought my brugs had some weird virus, that made odd, scratchy circles around the trunks (well, I would say!), before I realized it was the cats. I've always said a kid and a dog will make a fool outta you every time, which is true, but you can add cats (meow variety) to that too!!
Like Kell, I do not cut my brugs back in the fall, because, like she said, it stimulates growth. What I do is watch the weather reports closely and make my cuttings at the midnight hour, on the date of the first hard freeze. At that time I cut everything I want and put them in the bubbler or send them out. Later, I remove more to about 12 inches off the ground, but not to the root line, just in case they want to sprout on the lower, woody area in the spring. This is subject to change because last winter 2004-05 was my first time ever to use a bubbler or bring brugs to the GH for the winter.
That's exactly what the cats do, Susie, they scratch the bark!! Do yours scratch on the area that is their height, stretched out??
Yes! and they will do it right in front of me knowing they are going to get fussed at! They will also drink all the water out of little buckets of cuttings I have rooting. They are bad kitties. At least they come inside to use the littler pan and don't mess in my flower beds.
Susie, that's good for the cats to go inside to the litter box. They'll sure dig a mess in a flower bed. Ask me how I know and i don't have a cat. LOL
I do not know know why but my cats are no longer using the flower beds for a litter box, and mine are outside cats. Only thing different is that I have kept the beds watered much more this year, I'm spraying the leaves daily, sometimes twice a day. I dunno. But I do know that I HATE it when they used the beds...
I heard cocoa hulls freak them out and they won't go into you beds.
I think that's true Kell - I've forgotten the details and I might have coco hulls mixed up with something else, but I think they can be harmful to animals, maybe just dogs; OTOH, brugs could kill them dead or make them very ill...