Butt-Heads of the Garden

"I love to think of nature as an unlimited broadcasting station, through which God speaks to us every hour, if we will only tune in."
George Washington Carver

TODAY'S SEEDS OF WISDOM

• JUST BLOOMED TODAY  
• AWKWARD PHOTO OF THE DAY
• TWEET TREATS
• DID YOU KNOW...?
• GARDEN UPDATE
• BUTT-HEADS OF THE GARDEN
• FAUNA
• GARDEN GIGGLE
• WHAT IN THE WORLD?  
• FEEDBACK

JUST BLOOMED TODAY 

Water Plant

AWKWARD PHOTO OF THE DAY 

TWEET TREATS

bringing you the quirky, funniest and most interesting tweets from Twitter that we came across.  

DID YOU KNOW...?

that a 'jiffy' is actually 1/100th of a second?

GARDEN UPDATE
Happy Tooth Fairy Day to all! Since I have a T.F. alter-ego, thought I would mention it!

Cooler today and when I finally got to watering it was 10:30 am and I was worried but it was only 90F and overcast, so only unpleasant and hot when the sun was out from behind the clouds. Got a chance to clean out gutters before we are deluged again.

Been growling thunder all morning, interspersed with telephonic severe flash flood warnings every hour. Clouds in the sky are so lovely...here's a view from my yard of one side of our 360 view of mountains.

BUTT-HEADS OF THE GARDEN

Well, let's face it...not every visitor to your garden is a welcome one. Here are a few to be on the look-out for:

GRASSHOPPERS: These insects are Satan's gift to the world. They are incredibly voracious and will destroy your greenery overnight. They are prolific and the baby ones can eat almost as much as their parents to aid their growing bodies. We feed ours to the black widow spider or the koi.

KATYDIDS: Pretty much the same working plan as the grasshopper. The only difference is that the katydid is cuter- it has back legs/wings that look like a real leaf. Sadly, they are just as destructive.

THRIPS: Those tiny green bugs with wings that live in your grass and weeds and consume your plants. This is why it is so important to pull your weeds so thrips do not have an environment to live and breed in. Their feeding can cause discoloration, deformity and death of plant matter. There are over 20 known plant viruses currently transmitted by thrips.

APHIDS: We all know these butt-heads annoying our roses and plants. Green and numerous, they can be a heartache for a tender rose bush or unsuspecting plant. Aphids are often infected with bacteria, fungi or viruses. Fortunately there are natural enemies of the aphid, the ladybug or parasitic wasp being the strongest. Nothing gives me more pleasure than watching a hungry ladybug devour an aphid.

SNAILS/SLUGS: These vile creatures can undo all your hard garden work in just one night. Voracious eaters, they love tender new shoots and most often work at night.During the day they hide in damp places, such as under fallen logs, rocks or planters, away from the sun. We have heard many different methods to discourage snails and slugs that are safe around pets. One is to spread crushed egg shells around the base of your plant...they cannot go across the sharp shells. We have heard of the beer method, where you sit a small can lid of beer in the ground nearby and they are attached to it, go inside and die; We tried this and it did not work. We also heard of the salt method where you spread a line of salt and when they cross it it kills them...this was not effective for us, either. The best method we have found is to use the gel-like snail killer, such as DEADLINE which is the consistency of toothpaste and is spread around the base of your plants, When the slug walks through it, there is something in it that makes their skin expand and explode. Problem solved.

SQUIRRELS: Yup, they sure are cute but horribly destructive. They love to chew wires, cords, electric wires, drywall, plaster, you name it. They especially love tender young plants and fruit. They can also carry diseases such as the Bubonic plague and rabies. Unfortunately the only permanent solution is not a friendly one.

Making your garden pest-free is an ongoing battle, but, oh so worth it when you can sit back and enjoy your beautiful blooms!

GARDEN GIGGLE

I have been in many places, but I've never been in Cahoots. Apparently, you can't go alone. You have to be in Cahoots with someone.

I've also never been in Cognito. I hear no one recognizes you there. I have, however, been in Sane. They don't have an airport; you have to be driven there. I have made several trips there, thanks to my friends, family and work.

I would like to go to Conclusions, but you have to jump, and I'm not too much on physical activity anymore.

I have also been in Doubt. That is a sad place to go, and I try not to visit there too often. I've been in Flexible, but only when it was very important to stand firm. Sometimes I'm in Capable, and I go there more often as I'm getting older.

One of my favorite places to be is in Suspense! It really gets the adrenalin flowing and pumps up the old heart! At my age I need all the stimuli I can get!

I may have been in Continent, and I don't remember what country I was in. It's an age thing.
FAUNA

How do you know we're adopted?

WHAT IN THE WORLD?  
On today in American history, people in gardens everywhere were talking about:
1754 Louis XVI of France was born in Versailles
1814 First Lady Dolley Madison saves a portrait of Washington from being looted by the British during the War of 1812
1989 Pete Rose gets booted from baseball
1902 Fannie Farmer opens her cooking school and introduces women to accurate measurements of food  which revolutionized American cooking through its use of precise measurements, a novel culinary concept at the time.
1904 Patent for the tire chain issued
1926 Rudolph Valentino dies
1939 Hitler and Stalin sign a non-aggression pact for Germany and the Soviet Union
1979 Ballerina Aleksandr Godunov defects to United States
1999 NYC reports first cases of West Nile Virus
2012 Endangered blue and humpback whales flock to California coast to feed

FEEDBACK

 

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