Daily Musings - page 16

Wow - congrats, Cat! You'll be treating like a diamond!

Cat, very cool on the lady slipper! I would love one, but I'm afraid I would spend the $$$ and then kill it.

Andy, I had the JB's 'rising' from my front lawn this year. they were just hovering about a foot above the ground everywhere. it was creepy. definitely getting the milky spore. last year was the first I had ever seen them. they just about decimated my river birch. the leaves were all lace. I put a drench of Bayer Tree & Shrub insect control on it this year. Heard about over on the rose forum. only affects the insects that eat the leaves, so it won't harm bees. no spraying, which I don't like (I'm asthmatic, plus it gets on everything, whether you want it or not). took about 5 minutes tops (dilute in a gallon of water and pour it on at the base of the tree). lasts a year. one day the tree was covered with them. 2 days after the Bayer they were gone. very few have gotten as far as my rose garden. I don't use chemicals generally, and definitely not in the rose garden..I hand pick them there.

they also love this daylily, so it serves as kind of a trap before they get to the back yard (where my beloved roses are). I can hand pick off the daylily.

Beautiful daylily - ugly bugs!!

I'm afraid that I will kill it, too. But I didn't kill the Jack-in-a-Pulpits - so I'm hoping. . .

Andy that's the female jb... try getting them out of your hair... yesterday they got in my hair again... I guess they know how much I hate them.... and I put then in a emty water bottle and let then die a slow death in the sun... yes, I have no mercy on them....

Yeah I thought it was a JB as well. Jan, why use the chemical for the tree but not the others?? Also, I assume butterflies would not be affected? Of course caterpillars would be.

Victor, I would rather not resort to chemicals at all, but this stuff was so much better (control-wise) than spray-types. I can't hand pick off an 18' tree. It would affect caterpillars and I think there is one type that likes birch (can't think which at the moment). If I get the milky spore on the lawn, I may not have it use the drench on the tree more than once or twice.

But what happens if they really start going after your roses and other plants? It's impossible to may much of a dent hand-picking, isn't it?

What about a battery handheld vacuum to suck them all up?

Just read in Fine Gardening that milk spore has spotty success. And of course, they can fly into your garden from elsewhere.

I have to confess that last year I almost had a nervous breakdown because of jb... so I used the systemic 3 in one Bayer... I felt so guilty... but it did work... one day and those things were gone...

today I hand picked about 30 ... not only on roses but also sunflowers!...oh I am so mad...

I am very jealous of the plants... don't want anything bugging them.... I heard on the rose forum that some people has success with Veggie Pharm ... it's pretty expensive but it kills them on contact...

OK, I got an ID on the beetle. It's an Anomala orientalis.
The milky spore has mixed reviews, I know. I suspect people continue to use insecticides after applying it which kill the milky spore as well. It can take a couple of years to spread out and it's fairly expensive.
You apply it (a powder) by tablespoons dropped in a 3 foot grid on the lawn. The JB grubs eat it as they travel among the grass roots. The spore slowly infests the entire grub until it dies. Then the spore waits for the next victim. One application can last for 20 - 30 years.
Grampapa, put it down now so it's ready for all those nasty eggs/grubs that the adults will be laying soon. Remember, it only works on JBs. It's totally organic and harmless to all other critters.
Andy P

Just in case you missed it on the other thread - this is a mystery daylily. We found it growing behind the garage (apparently it has been there for a while, but DH kept weed wacking it until he realized it was probably a flower)

Anyway, it's a total volunteer - it has three layers of petals. Any idea what it's name might be?

Went to Brimfield yesterday for the antique flea market.

Got this wonderful jack-in-the-pulpit vase. The flowers are lisanthus, obedience plant, and white daylilies.

Also, got this tall, narrow pinwheel crystal vase (yes I know pinwheel is very common) - just $8 - the same vase in Canada would probably be over $80.00

Got a Waterford water goblet to match the three I have $30. Same goblet in Canada = $100+

Also got these - I know they are nothing fancy - but I really liked them. got the pair for $8

The Rockport pottery vases started at $498 and went up from there. Too rich for my purse lol.

I bet anything that vases that popular have probably inspired cheap imitations.

Noticed on the new videos that Dave "installs" bulbs. I tend to plant mine - - - *chuckle*

Yes - I commented on the thread that he is a real computer geek and can't get away from the jargon.

Michaela, don't you know that ALL disposable income is to go towards plants?!!!

Well, I understand that - but DH has decided that he should use $500 to buy a 1990 Cadilac (has leather seats).

Then he was to drive it to Victoria and deliver it to daughter #1 - (who doesn't know how to drive!)

Oh, well. He never complains (too much) about how much I have spent on the gardens this year.

Garden's Alive sells these nematodes as an organic improvement over Milky Spore:
http://www.gardensalive.com/product.asp?pn=2349

Wow - a 1990 cadillac with leather seats. That just might be my dream car. But the gas - it probably gets 17 miles per gallon!

I bet it gets less than that. 12?

But it's got leather seats! Maybe it is worth it. For my money a cadillac has the best ride of any car. Sigh.

??? I have no idea but trust me any young girl who is thinking of a car is thinking of sex in back seat LOL Sorry but true!

Dawn, I think in this day of Mcmansions and 2 parents working, that cars are no longer as important for that.

Perhaps but I am thinking if they want to do it they will no matter what!

Dawn, do you have kids?

Is a car necessary for sex in the backseat??

DD is 27 years old - old enough to have sex in the backseat of a car if she wants :-)

Dawn is gonna get us in hot water. She's only back for a couple of days and look what she's doing!!

I walked out the back door with both cats this afternoon and heard wings beating in the blueberry bushes. Both cats heard it too and made a beeline for the bush. I grabbed them both and got them back in the house and found what I think was a cedar waxwing tangled in the netting protecting my blueberries. He was so tangled that I had to go in and get a pair of scissors to cut him out. I was so worried that he was hurt because I was being selfish with the berries. I finally got him cut out but there was a little bit of netting left around his leg that I couldn't cut with the scissors without the risk of cutting him. He flew right off once he was loose - so I hope he is OK. I took the netting off the berries and if I have to protect them in the future - I will build a cage around them with aviary wire. For now - the birds are welcome to all the blueberries they want. The strange thing is that the female cat sat in the window watching and howling like she was in a cat fight all the time I was working with the bird. Afterwards - she wouldn't come out of the house - Wallingford ran right out - but she stayed in the window.

Cat, try cheesecloth over the berries. Poor bird.
The last few days that I used bird netting over the strawberries it would be tangled and moved around in the mornings. I was wondering if something was getting caught in it. I think it has to be well secured to the ground to discourage any critters from getting 'into' it.
I'm going to need it for the grapes in September.

Well I finally mowed the lawn. It was terribly long after my being sick for 10 days. It needed cutting before I got sick. I'm tired, lol.

Now I find that my Daily Pics web site got some new features today. More stuff I have to learn how to set up and implement. I'm too tired to work on that tonight. It can wait, lol.
Andy P

Is this the year of the wasp? In the last month, I found four different wasps' nests--carpenter wasps, paper wasps, yellow jackets, and some plain big black ones. Ugh.

Loretta

I haven't yet found any wasps (knock on wood). Nor have I seen many bees of any kind at all. However ---- lots of moles and voles! UGH!!

Cat, I have had the same experience and don't like to use netting. Also, if you forget to give it a tug every couple of days, pants and weeds get tangled in it and it's a mess.

Yes, lots of wasps. I like them, they keep the Cabbage worms in check. They are cool to watch as they hunt in the Broccoli patch.
There are plenty of Honey bees around here.
I even found my first Praying Mantis as I was deadheading the Stella D'Oro Day Lilies. That's where they lived last year, too.
I had an unpleasant surprise this morning. First thing was to do a load of laundry, let Sarah out and check on the gardens. When I came back in I heard a spraying sound and stepped in an inch of hot water. The hose to the washer had burst. What a mess. Water had sprayed all over, even scoured the paint off the wall near the valve.
Fortunately, the floor is lower near the exit door (this is in the basement). I quickly shut off the water, moved bags of garden supplies and boxes to higher ground, tossed a few carpet scraps outside. The snow shovel was handy and worked fine for the deep water, then the mop. Even the bathroom had a wet floor.
All this was before breakfast. Now do you want to hear about the rest of my day? lol.

Oh bummer, Andy!! What an awful start to your day. Hope it got better.

Andy, sounds like you'e got some bad karma going or something. Unfair!! you just get feeling a little better and the plumbing acts up :( so sorry.

those wonderful big bumblebees have been all over my lavender. and there are all kinds of wasps. it seems everywhere the jap. beetles go the wasps go, too.

I had a similar problem with bird netting. I netted my grapes because the cardinals were eating all of them. the female cardinal managed to get inside but couldn't get out (at least she didn't get tangled). so I had to take it off. also, when I shut out the birds, the grape clusters were full of spiders/webs. you can't win LOL

I have had to rescue birds every year when I have the netting on my pond. And I take great pains to make entry as difficult as possible.