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I've been away...

Hi All,

        I have been without internet access since 11th July, when
Andrew's monitor died and the one from the office blew up!!  Have you any
idea of the amount of things you can get done when the computer doesn't
beckon? :-).  I have tidied up all my house plants as well as getting the
house clean, read books (those things with hard covers and pages you have
to turn manually!!) done some weeding, done a tax return... and now I have
reams of E-mail to catch up with, so I guess things will return to normal
now!

        I scribbled the following after taking a close look at the plants
in the sun lounge... (can you tell I had time on my hands?)

        I left my plants for just a day - I thought that they were clean,
        But there's spider mite and mealy bug and aphids black and green.
        Oh! And I suppose I'd better mention there are fungus gnats there
too.
        Where do these pests appear from and whatever shall I do?

        My cactii all looked healthy, with floweres on every one,
        But when I peered up at close range, there are bugs there by the
ton. 
        Have mealy bugs developed wings to help them spread so far?
        Or maybe they're moving with the times - in a sort of mini-car!

        I forgot about the whitefly (though how, I'll never know.)
        I lift up leaves and there they are, how *can* I make them go?
        I've hung up sticky yellow traps, a colour so sublime,
        But it seems I've bred a strain of pest that's very colour blind!

        My Oleanders draw the eye, with flowers both white and pink,
        But when I go to show them off, I have to stop and blink...
        There's aphids on the blossoms, there's aphids on the shoots
        And worst of all there's spider mite, and mealy on the roots.

        One last pest that's just arrived, one I've never had before,
        It harms my plants, then kills them - it's this that I abhor.
        Its larvae nibble at the roots in a way I find quite evil,
        Now can you guess just what it is?  It's the insidious vine weevil.

        So I've sprayed my plants and drenched them with insecticide,
        And I've cleaned off all the baby bugs (is that infanticide?)
        But I bet that when I look again, the pests will all be feasting.
        Hey!  It's war this summer, bugs beware, I WILL have you beaten!

        I will get round to answering those who have written to me very
soon - when I've read some digests.  Happy bug hunting...
Liz Bradbury and the Scottish gang.
(visit my website at its new address:
     http://www.triumvirate.demon.co.uk )
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