…and our Hibiscus at home is happily flowering.

With our plants recovering from salt shock, they’re more susceptible to parasites. Mealy bugs have appeared on this one where previously they never were.

This is what happens when you water Avocado trees with NaCl softened water. Our water softener wasn’t brining properly for months and once it was fixed we had forgotten about our plants.

We continued to water the plants in the house with our tap water until the Avocado started looking like this and losing leaves. At that point we realized there was a problem. We had to leach the soil and now we water all of our plants with straight well water. They are all in different stages of recovery…

We’ve been trying to eradicate Spider Mites, Mealy Bugs, and Scale Insects from many of our houseplants for the last year and a half. We’ve had some slow success but I found out today that some Ladybugs can help to control these pests. Apparently Ladybugs will eat more than just their favourite insect: the Aphid.

We have a few Ladybugs in the house that I vacuum up every so often, but now I think I’ll just transPlant them. Here’s one on our Begonia.

Last Summer, the Girl and I planted seven three-foot Colorado Blue Spruces at the front of the house near the easement to the road. We staggered them nicely so that they would provide a screen for the house down at the road. The existing trees in front of the house are mostly maples and aren’t very good at screening in the winter. The remaining evergreens are hemlocks that are having a rough time surviving the house builder’s regrade of the hill and subsequent deforestation there.

In December after the Girl and Boy returned from their wedding in Mexico, I was out for a walk and noticed that something looked odd about the front area of the house. Upon further investigation it turned out that someone had dug up and stolen four of the spruces. They left the three that were closest to the road. We called the cops and reported it, but how could they possibly find the culprits?

Well we thought that the rest of the trees were safe. We were wrong. Someone stole two more last night. Can you believe that? I hope the stolen trees survive the transplant. I’m sure they’ve lost lots of roots and we have been getting frost almost every night for the last week.

Any ideas, anyone, how to prevent this from happening again here or to others?