My Hero!

When I got home tonight and took a look at some of my flowers, I saw these little red things all over them. At first I thought they were part of the plant, like some weird growth maybe because of all the rain we've had... and then I noticed the little things were moving. I got one on my fingertip and smooshed it... it was really red. Bugs. Yuk.


So I called my sister, Kathy, who informed me I had a healthy crop of spidermites. Gross. She sounded a little tired and was telling me what to do to get rid of them, and then she offered to just come over right then and spray the little bastards with Seven. What a girl! My sister, my hero!

I did a little research on the 'net, and it sounds like those spidermites are difficult to kill, and I'll probably have to spray every 7 days or so for a while until the little buggers are all gone. Kathy said if I don't manage to get rid of them, I should cut all those plants out and burn 'em. Shit. Here's hoping the spray does the trick, coz I really like those yellow flowers... whatever the heck they're called again.

Most of the flowers I have here I got from Kathy, and some I've dug out of the woods, near our ponds or ditches and plopped in my garden. If it can grow in a ditch and survive, it may have a chance with me. I'm a disorganized gardener, and I don't mind the wild look. If a weed has pretty foliage, I just may leave it. But Kathy's gardens are filled with beautiful specimens that will show you just how that plant, flower or shrub is supposed to look. Her gardens are gorgeous. After she sprayed my plants, we were in the house visiting, and Sammy said something to Aunt Kathy like, "your flower gardens are beautiful, not like my...." Um, yes, Sammy, what was that? Not like whose? It was funny. I told him, hey, kid, I totally agree.

I used to try and keep track of what the names of my flowers & plants are, and I think I do better on the wild flowers. For instance, I have a bunch of evening primrose going great guns in my garden now. It really started to take over and I had to rip a bunch out. These sundrops are blooming...

and I called them evening primrose in front of Kathy, who was able to quickly point out that they were sundrops (she gave them to me, and I couldn't have come up with the name sundrops to save my life). I told her, hey, I'm not the family horticulturist, you are. She said, "no, you're just the family whore." I said, "so... I'll have more fun in life and die happy." She said, "yeah, the undertaker will spend days just trying to get that smile off your face."