Chinch bugs....

June 22, 2006
Another very hot day. Clouded up a few times, but only a few minutes sprinkling of rain. Plants were grateful to be watered... hose...

I love how the caladium has tiny areas of pink that matches the polka dot plant - hypoestes. I took this photo about two weeks ago and due to storms had the plants up on the porch for the last week. The polka dot plant is now very stretched because it didn't get enough sun. Lemonade is that now I won't feel badly about 'pruning' it and starting several new cuttings. I love using this plant as ground cover or mulch for some of the other plants.

I think there are some chinch bugs out in the yard. I've read several natural things to do to get rid of them, the most important is moisture. They say if a lawn is kept wet, you don't have that problem. There is a pretty large patch that need attention. Tomorrow I'll spray with water heavy with lemon dish washing soap.. and then perhaps with terazacide.. and then water well once again.

The butterfly bush is covered with blossoms. The crepe mytrle out front has a bunch of light pink blooms.. the one out back has some very dark magenta flowers just opening. I've seen bushes all over town.. not pruned and literally covered with color. Mine are pretty sparse. The pale pink gets sun in the morning, the dark magenta in the afternoon. I clipped the tips of the one out back.. snipped off old blooms, and didn't touch the one out front, so apparently that's not the factor. Think I need to go research the 'how to'.


The 4 o'clocks are blooming some, but still pretty puny plants. a few in the ground, and two large pots of them. Most of the ones in the pots seem to be yellow and white.. the ones out behind the house are pink and white. I have all these wonderful gardens in my mind's eye, but can't seem to get them transferred to the ground. Perhaps its because hard labor is what does the transferring.

Ants have been swarming lately. We had an invasion of those huge carpenter ants one night... mostly with wings. Hans aired out his drop cloths and found ants in both storage containers. Time for some well placed Amdro. Home Depot said that it would take care of any kind of ant. I've also heard that if you have ants, you're not apt to have termites because ants eat termites. We have every size ant I can imagine, so perhaps we are well protected from termites... and now for the carpenter ants.