First day back at work felt like I hadn't left! :) Nothing changed! Ryan - I'm going freshwater. 'Black Veil Angels' - I love them! Actually - any angels are nice! Deb - Thanks! Good to be back & somewhat back to normal! And the puppy time is getting closer - March 16th! I wish it would hurry & get here! :) Brugs from Eddie. lol! Too many - but I'm glad I splurged a little! I purchased the following: 'American Pride' - 'Angels' Swingtime' - 'Angel's Exotic' - 'Angel's Sunbeam' - 'Bergkonigin' - 'Confusion' - 'Doosie' - 'Emerald Frost' - 'Felicity' - 'Golden Dream' - 'Kong Mansia' - 'Meadow Princess' - 'Native Habitat Double Peach' - 'Orange Infusion' - 'Peanut' - 'Rubirosa' & 'Sam' The list of wants could have continued! lol! He's got such great Brugs! My trade list is filling fast! Shawn - Get an aquarium! What's another addiction?? :) Rigo - That's what intend to do - sit on the sofa & watch the fish! Caren - See how our addictions rub off on one another! lol! Kristy - Tadpoles?? lol! No thank you! :) Lucy - I never said that! :) But I do feel better! Mary Jane - Too sweet! 'Pamper the little momma!' Great theme! And believe me - she's pampered! The day is getting closer! Daniella - Pics! Pics & more pics! You know how I am with that camera! lol! Eloise - First day was no different then when I started there years ago! Nothing seemed to have changed! Karma - 'Angels' for sure! And btw - 'Datmansia' seed starting sprouting two days ago! I'll have to get out the camera soon! :) Thanks for sending me the seed! Ok - off for now! Hope everyone has a great day! I have a few more pots to get ready for Eddie's Brugs when they arrive - hopefully today! :) Mike

Hello Lucy! Nice blooms. I have some kangaroo paws in ground. They are actually very fussy plants. They are from parts in Australia where they experience regular, prolonged drought. They often go dormant in the summer, so summer water will kill them. I have mine on a drip irrigation system and they receive minimal water in the summer, but they also have excellent drainage, so the water just keeps them from going dormant. They are an excellent plant for xeric gardens. I have mine growing alongside aloes, agaves, beschorneria, ice plants, yuccas, sedums...all of which have similar water needs. One other thing, they are very suceptible to a kind of fungus if they are watered overhead. That's why I have mine on a drip system. Do a google search to find out more infomation on them. They are also fussy about soil PH requirements I think. Good luck! Note: If you remove spent blooms, most varieties will rebloom for you.

I found my missing Fall bin! I had previously said if I (later on) found it in my Christmas storage, I'd scream loud enough for you to hear. Well I did find it with other Christmas bins....thankfully now instead of in Dec... but I almost screamed anyway! You see the "Gi-normous" blue bin? It is totally FULL of Fall. It feels like bricks are in there, I could barely drag from garage into family room! I didn't do anything so far but lift the lid to confirm it was Fall. The size and weight of this thing is REALLY scary! Especially as I unpacked 4 other Fall bins, the size of the green one, and you saw how much I've decorated. Holy Purple Cow! Maybe this one should have STAYED missing! Sheesh. It was in one of the places I'd looked THREE times already. Guess one should never stop looking, huh? I have a corner in the garage with Christmas bins, most all the size of the green one cause that is an easy size for me to lift and carry. Tho I do have some the next size up for garlands as I have so many of them. This blue one, needless to say, was on the bottom of the stack. And I was POSITIVE all my big Xmas garlands were stored in there. POSITIVE, I tell you! Of course if I had any working brain cells left, when I put it out there last year and had clearly written FALL on it in a big black marker, I'd have made sure the lettering faced the FRONT and not the garage wall. Arrrrrggghhhh. Anyway, this evening, out of frustration after previously checking all the green bins before... without having to move any of them... I moved all of them and looked in the blue one just to prove to myself it did hold the Xmas garland. Wish you'd seen my face when I saw what I saw. And glad I couldn't see the look of horror that it must have showed. Especially when I went to move it. (I swear there has to be bricks in there!!) I probably will have to drag it out on the back porch in the morning as I can't have it, or a mess of stuff, in my family-room cause company is coming over. The man who wrote Jason's book is coming back to go thru my photos, and the memorabilia (articles, magazines, etc) I've collected since he was burned. He'll probably be here around 2 hrs. The book is at the publisher waiting for photos. Will be ready to order soon hopefully. (Jas and Russ both will sign copies for any of you who want it by the way. Unfortunately I don't know the price yet) Well, my back is screaming at me for dragging that bin and moving all the others full of Xmas things, so I better go move around and treat myself to some Vicodin. If I was smart I'd throw them out and get some Vodka. LOL. Probably be cheaper and I'd probably be more fun to be around. hugs, Karen PS...Marlene, how neat you and I almost share the same anniversary day.

Hello, Bart. I knew that was you. I'm afraid my thanks are due to you rather than the other way around, as I'll be looking into site you give in your message: the beetles are a plague here too, especially Oxythyrea funesta (and it is funesta for a fact). About Coldiretti, we're members, and DH just walked into the local office and asked for information and was given the phone number of the Phytosanitary Service. Since it was for Piacenza it won't do you any good. You probably have a Coldiretti office in your area where you could ask for information; Coldiretti seems to provide some services to other people than members, and they have always struck me as helpful types, so they could tell you whom to contact. They're a capillary kind of organization, not one of the sort where you have to make an appointment and go to the city to find someone to talk to, but very much on the ground and available to people with questions. I don't remember the site I found last time and I didn't write it down, but if you do a search on 'piralide del bosso' it will bring up all kinds of sites and a lot of information. Once I got confirmation that Bacillus thuringensis subsp. Kurstaki was the proper treatment--this seems to be the official line--we bought it at the local...what in the U.S. would be a feed store, or at least that's its nearest equivalent...and did some heavy duty spraying. We used the commercial product, that employed by farmers, and a backpack sprayer. This was in powder form and cost €45, and while I doubt we'll use more than a small percentage of the stuff I believe it will still work out cheaper than the home garden preparation. The name is CoStar WG, manufactured by Certis. The liquid used for home gardening, which I tried first, seemed considerably less effective and cost more. We have several dozen box plants, some of them fairly large. We did two treatments at an interval of a week with the commercial product, after a first treatment with the home garden preparation. DH and I divided the spraying--it wasn't easy: some areas were so steep that I was thinking longingly of climbing harness--taking about five hours for a full treatment of all our box. Currently the box tree moth seems to be MOSTLY under control; I saw only one plant, that DH missed, with living caterpillars, and nothing was completely defoliated, though quite a few plants were hit hard with this spring's infestation. Now that we've had a good rain and I can hope that they'll leaf out again, I can trim back the defoliated young growth. Of course new growth may bring a new infestation, I believe this is going to be a permanent problem. About your idea of talking with Coldiretti about more environmentally friendly ways of dealing with pests--if I understand you; I may not--well, good luck. Two things: first, there is a lot of research going on in Italy about more environmentally friendly ways to farm. I get Coldiretti's regional (Emilia-Romagna) monthly magazine and read parts of it, and there's quite a lot about research with this kind of orientation. Second, from what I see of the local farmers, they tend to be traditionalists, to put it kindly, and not much given to continuing education, attention to research, or concern for the environment. This is purely on the basis of my personal experience and observation, and it's not coming from a person who has an agricultural background. Also agricultural culture may vary from place to place: farmers in your area may be considerably different from those in mine, not to mention that I've had contact with only a few of the local farmers. Even here locally there may be considerable variation in practices and culture. Melissa