Homeowner Forum / Lawn and Garden / July 2008

Whilst talking about Billy Goat garden vacuums I ran a quick search on Ebay
for Billy Goats to se if any were going cheap at the moment but came up with
this;
http://cgi.ebay.co ...

For Valentine's Day my husband gave me a thoughtful gift - a
supermarket mini-rose. I wasn't sure how long it would last, but it
was doing pretty well until this week. When I first received it, I
read up on its care and have been looking after it as best I could.

Cool. It likes cypress mulch.
Article here:
http://www.miamiherald.com/457/story/594330.html
Photos here:

If you are interested, you might want to look at the article on
no till farming in the July Scientific American (page 70, I think). It
is mostly an industrial approach but the article finishes by saying that
the problems with industrial no till farming (pests and weeds that arise

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2008/07
/04/whats_growing_at_the_white_house/?page=full
What's growing at the White House?
By Ellen Goodman

Strange fruit, but what is it ??
www.gb-online.co.uk/archive/fruit.jpg

Anyone Does anyone know anything that will kill red spider mites?
I've tried "Bug clear gun", which appears to have an active poison of
bifenthrin-pyrethroids, the damm things do a dance and laugh at that stuff
so I'm looking for something better.

I have some form of Bracket Fungi in a tree of mine (unsure of the type of
tree), a pic of the fungi can be seen here
http://i46.photobucket.com/albums/f102/anzacspirit/055.jpg . Just curious if
there is a treatment for this, I've read that if it has rotted the tree away

I'm thinking of buying a Japanese Willow and was wondering if
anybody had any advice on planting area, compost type, soil type etc?
How fast do they grow and do they need regular pruning?
I heard a rumour that sometimes their roots can cause problems due t

I am getting overrun by two weeds this year, well two additional weeds
anyway.
Thing is I never saw them before this year, so I'm wondering where they came
from (bird droppings??).

Don't know whether the photographer is the grower but the images are
stunning.
http://www.terragalleria.com/studio/subjects.orchids.html

Okay i am a beginner, and having read some forums already i notice the
seem unwelcome to the experts!!!! However, i produced a wall o
sunflowers from seeds, they are against an ugly garden wall that
wanted a quick covering of. They now stand at arout 5' tall, but stil

I have 3 basil plants and one mint plant on my window sill.  They
needed to be moved to larger pots so I went to my parents house, dug
up some dirt from their back yard, filled 3 planters and put the dirt
next to my vibrant plants, ready to transfer once I had some time.

Has anyone found an effective way of fixing pin-prick holes in garden hoses?
I have tried bike puncture repair kits and self-vulcanising tape. Both work
for a short while but eventually succumb to the water pressure.
Why do holes always appear near the middle of the hose rather ...

I've been with this group since sometime in 1997. I've looked at just
about every post since then. (I say looked at, rather than read,
because there have been times when I glossed over certain subjects.)
I hadn't been here in over a week. Today I thought I would catch up