Pet rescue

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Attending the Larimer County Humane Society’s Top Cat and Tails gala, I was impressed by the devotion humans feel toward animals and their creative ways to raise money to care for them. The live auction had many items of interest, from Caribbean condo stays to baskets of wine, but what captured my fancy was the offer of having your pets’ photo plastered to a billboard. For the right price, Fluffy will be the spokes-animal of an adoption ad for three months on the highway.

Several of my dinner companions were already shaking their heads before I got the words out, knowing the type of pets I keep. “A tarantula would be perfect for that billboard,” I said, musing on the possibilities. “But right now the only pet I have is a praying mantid. I wonder if that would help them raise pet adoption awareness?” Those at the table who didn’t know me stopped chewing, looking mildly horrified.

“She’d be easy to photograph; her wing is damaged and she can’t fly. That’s why the humans rescued her before giving her to me – they didn’t think she’d survive,” I said, plying their sympathy for a wounded creature. But good intentions took me too far; enthusing about her laying an egg case didn’t elicit maternal ooohs and ahhhs I’d banked on.

“How many eggs are in that egg case?” asked one guest, staring at me as if he were seated with a member of the Addams Family. “About 200,” I said, “but they’re hungry when they hatch and go after each other, so you really end up with about six fat, happy youngsters.” Discussing insects and cannibalism over dinner is one reason why I’m not invited to many formal events.

The insect in question is a European mantid (Mantis religiosa), picked up by well-meaning people who feared for her safety in winter. In this, the good Samaritans are right; these insects, imported for biological control, only survive our winters when it’s mild, although a few of the toughest manage to get through to spring. Thus, the European mantid is found throughout much of Colorado.

It’s a big bug, measuring three-and-a-half inches long, green with a “bull’s-eye” marking under the front legs. These forelegs are spectacular: long, broad, edged in spikes and tipped with claws to hold prey close to feed. “I’ve had mantids I can hear eating, crunching their grasshoppers as they chew through the exoskeleton,” I said. Oddly, this tidbit of information had the table guests looking for vacant seats elsewhere, and my spouse started pressing his knee against my leg in a subtle warning that I was scaring people.

The eggs she laid are encased in an insulated, foamy material that hardens and gives them the appearance of a Styrofoam peanut. Mantids lay these most often on hard surfaces such as rocks, pipes, fences, and plant stalks. In spring, they hatch, and hundreds of mantid nymphs emerge, feeding on soft insects at first, then as they grow, moving on to larger prey.

Should you try rearing mantids at home, keep them in separate terrariums. If you have an adult female, give her a stick on which to lay the egg case, then move her into another cage; egg cases need a cold period and are best stored for a few weeks in an unheated place such as a shed or on the north side of homes. Bring the egg cases indoors to warm them to room temperature and encourage hatching.

Feed the nymphs small insects, such as fruit flies, midges and small flies. As they grow, feeder crickets from pet stores work well. Mantids need water, so mist the interior surface of their container once per week. Release your mantids into the garden once days are warm. But take my advice, and keep your pet information to yourself.

Non-gardeners just don’t understand.

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Hopping mad over grasshoppers

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A rustling noise alerted me to a visitor in the squash patch, one that gives gardeners the chills each season. Thinking it was a squirrel, my concern was simply for the swelling pumpkins whose rind is irresistible to the pilferers. Stalking up to the patch to catch the robber red-pawed, the rustling fell silent and no squirrel was found.

Mouse, rabbit and neighborhood cat all went through my mind but it wasn’t until the thief sprang from the foliage that I knew I had a problem. I stared into its eyes as it clung to the front of my shirt, gently masticating the last of its snatched meal. A grasshopper had invaded my vegetables, and where there’s one, there’s bound to be many.

More than 100 species of grasshoppers live in Colorado. Some feed on grasses, others weeds, but the Differential (Melanoplus differentialis), Twostriped (Melanoplus bivittatus), and Redlegged (Melanoplus femurrubrum) are frequent pests in home gardens. All types lay their eggs in the soil, favoring dry, undisturbed locations for their nurseries. Upon hatching in spring the young dine on nearby plants until they reach adulthood and fly off in search of food.

Controls for grasshoppers are aimed at the nymph stages, when the insects are vulnerable and don’t move over long distances. Baits, sprays, or the parasitic nematode, Nosema locustae, that worms its way throughout the body of the bug are all best on younger grasshoppers in early summer.

Now that it’s August such controls are no longer effective, since the hoppers in my yard arrived as adults. The sprays of insecticides that can be used are only slightly effective; they might kill the munching marauder today but have a limited time span. Another hopper will take its place in the next few days.

My usual method for ridding my garden of pests — throwing them in the neighbor’s yard — doesn’t work with grasshoppers; they just bounce right back. Literally. And floating row covers would do more harm than good, since I’d be trapping the hoppers under the tent with a complete buffet at their claw tips.

Poultry are a great choice if you live in an area that allows them. I know this first-hand, since my son used to raise ducks. They were comical, and thanks to a drake who took guard-duck duty seriously, were effective at keeping all manner of annoying creatures out of the yard, including grasshoppers and door-to-door salesmen.

Chickens, turkeys and guinea fowl are also touted by Colorado State University Extension as excellent non-chemical grasshopper control. The first two birds I’m familiar with, but guinea fowl are a mystery. Evidently they look like small vultures wandering your yard, shrilly cackling as they swoop down on insects, particularly grasshoppers, June beetles or Japanese beetles. Guinea hens are noisy, belting out a warning whenever intruders arrive, which in suburbia, means a cacophony arises whenever the postman, meter reader, garbage truck or my mother stops by. The entertainment potential alone makes them worth considering.

Ultimately there is little to be done to rid my garden of grasshoppers. Hopefully the plants

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Year of the aphid

Photo courtesy of Alison O'Connor

Several years ago a friend gave me hops plants, encouraging me to grow them, not because I love beer, but because I love bugs.  Each year, she assured me, her bines are crawling with ladybugs and lacewings feasting on the aphids that load the leaves. 

 The prospect of such a scenario won me over, and the hops have a home in the garden.  I’ve watched and waited for the insects, but the outbreak of historic proportions never arrived.  Until now.

Cleaning up and trellising the overgrown mass, I got up close and personal with more aphids than was comfortable.  True, they’re soft bodied and not aggressive, but the sheer numbers on the hops is alarming and the longer I worked with the bines, the more aphids I had crawling on me. 

Eventually I had to get the hoard off of me, and the stamping legs, shaking arms, and head flipping made my spouse think my iPod must be playing a rocking tune.  But soon he noticed the moving mass of pale green slowly engulfing me, the fence, and everything else in their path, and rescued me with a series of well aimed thwacks from his gloves. 

We fled the area, telling ourselves that the ladybugs have it under control, but in truth those plants are on their own.  A quick poll of gardeners this season shows many are fighting the same battle against that pear-shaped menace, which are rapidly turning our gardens into the Year of the Aphid.

Aphids are small, soft bodied, sap-sucking pests, and Colorado has several hundred species in a variety of sizes and colors, from green to black, purple, and red.  They feed by treating plants as their own personal big gulp, sucking the sap and reducing the plant’s vigor.  Aphids are born pregnant, and reproduce so quickly they rapidly build up on the plant. 

 But being soft bodied they’re easy to control.  Grab the hose and attach a nozzle that can direct a strong jet of water onto the plant.  The stream rips aphids from the stems.  If they aren’t crushed by water pressure, at least they’re flung to the ground, and due to very poor eyesight, can’t find their way back. 

 Insecticidal soap is excellent, provided the formula is made for the plant it’s sprayed upon.  Always read the label of any spray to see if your plant is listed.  Your plant must be mentioned on the label or chances are something about the spray will harm the plant.

Leaf curl aphids pose a different problem by stimulating the leaf to form a protective tent around the aphid colony.  This is a common problem on ash, plums and viburnums. Within the leaf, the colony is protected from water sprays and insecticidal soap, but there are a few beneficial insects can wriggle in and wreak havoc on leaf curl aphids. 

If you’re brave enough, grab one of the leaf curls and unroll it, ignoring the sticky sap and crushed insects that coat your hands.  Look for lady bug and lacewing larvae, or young syrphid flies, which are maggots.  Not all beneficial insects look cuddly like the ladybug, and learning to recognize pest predators is a must for savvy gardeners.  Check out the photos and information on Colorado State University Extension’s fact sheet .  To encourage beneficials, avoid spraying broad-spectrum insecticides that kill both good and bad bugs.

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Fireblight watch for fruit trees

Today’s post can be heard on the public radio show Crop to Cuisine, hosted by Dov Hirsch.

There’s a thug lurking in your neighborhood, taking every opportunity to attack your precious tree fruit.  With oozing droplets and a hoard of unwitting helpers, it moves from tree to tree, torching twigs and branches until the tree looks scorched.  Evidence of the infection becomes more obvious as we head into June.

 Fire blight is a bacterial disease that affects certain plants in the rose family. It is especially destructive to apple, pear, quince and crabapple. It attacks in spring, when temperatures reach 65 degrees F and frequent rain occurs, and then bacteria overwintered in cankers on the tree resume activity, multiplying rapidly.

 Though the good news is that we’ve had some rain and humidity, the bad news is:  the recent weather created good conditions for this damaging disease.  This is when masses of bacteria are forced through cracks and bark pores to the bark surface, where they form a sweet, gummy exudate called bacterial ooze.

 Insects such as bees, ants, flies, aphids and beetles are attracted to this ooze, pick up the bacteria on their bodies, and inadvertently carry the bacteria to opening blossoms. Bacterial ooze splashed by rain also can spread the disease.

 Young branch tips can be infected through air openings on leaves, called stomata, air openings on branches, called lenticels, or, more commonly, through wounds created by pruning, insects, or hail storms.

 Droplets of ooze can form on these infected twigs within three days and fruit may be infected through insect feeding wounds. Girdling cankers – areas of disease on the wood – eventually develop from branch or blossom infections.  Leaves wilt, darken and curl to form a shepherd’s crook. This gives the tree a fire-scorched appearance, thus the name “fire blight.” 

 There is no cure for this disease, so prevention is the best solution. Fire blight control methods include use of resistant varieties, cultural practices, pruning and spraying. Using resistant varieties is the most effective prevention method, but keep in mind that resistance doesn’t mean immunity.

 Remove and destroy newly infected young twigs as soon as possible, so that your tree doesn’t become the mother ship for disease in the neighborhood.   Do this when no rain is predicted for at least two weeks.   It may be best to leave pruning until winter when the bacteria are not active. This reduces infection on the tree and the number of bacteria available to infect healthy blossoms and shoots.

 In young twigs, make cuts at least 12 inches below the dark, visible edge of infection to avoid slicing into the bacteria. Remove all blighted twigs and cankered branches. Prune larger limbs about 6 to 12 inches below the edge of visible infection.

 After each cut, surface sterilize all tools used in pruning. Spray tools with Lysol or dip tools in 70-percent ethyl alcohol, or a 10-percent bleach solution.  Bleach can rust tools, so if you use this to sterilize your pruners, wash them after you’re done and apply a light tool oil to keep them rust-free.

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March madness is all because of mites

With perennials waking and buds swelling, we feel the call to get outside and reconnect with the earth. Each warm weekend we linger longer in the yard, reveling in the emergence of bulbs and blossoms. Yet, just as we feel the season’s change, so do others in the landscape. They’re out there now, getting busy and quietly enacting plans to take over more territory in your yard.

March is the mitiest month, not because it comes in like a lion, but because it heralds the climax of the smallest nuisances in the yard: Grass mites. And between feeding on the lawn and entering our homes, they’ve launched a campaign of annoyance.

Perhaps the most startling natural phenomenon that happens to many of us in the Front Range is the annual migration of clover mites into our homes. Moving by the hundreds, the tiny, bright orange arachnids clamber walls and slide in around windows.

The first appearance doesn’t raise more than an eyebrow, as one or two crawl across the desk. But then two becomes 10 and slowly that number creeps upward, until the warm day dawns when the mass moves indoors, teeming along the windowsill and streaming to the floor.

Normally, I’m not given to fear-mongering, especially about bugs and arachnids. Clover mites won’t cart off the cat for a luau on the deck. But they leave a red-orange smear once squished, and like a chalk outline around the carcass, reminds me of the crawler each time I see it on paper, book, or curtain. Creepy.

Outside, clover mites feed on turf grass or other plants. They’re unremarkable in the landscape; they don’t damage a lot of the lawn. But when lawns are nestled up against the house, the trouble starts, so plan your landscape to leave a barrier between plants and walls.

Within, controlling these mites is fairly simple. Simply place a quarter inch wide line of powder along the window-sill from side to side, being certain that the powder touches the side walls. This barrier, according to Dr. Whitney Cranshaw, state entomologist and professor at Colorado State University, is enough to stop them in their tracks. Any powder works, such as baby powder, corn starch, or baking powder. As the mites crawl into it, they’re rapidly incapacitated and dry out.

When the powder has gotten filled with mites it will turn a light orange color, a sure sign that it’s time to vacuum it up and apply a fresh barrier. Continue this until May, after the mites are actively entering homes.

As you’re battling mites in the home, keep an eye on the lawn, since more damaging mites are at the peak of feeding for the winter. During warm winters, such as what we’ve had, mite populations explode.

Hatched in October, mite numbers increase into winter. As they feed, rasping off the leaf surface and sucking up tender, interior cells, the damage appears as small yellow speckles on the grass blades. As feeding intensifies, the grass becomes straw colored and eventually dies, leaving large patches that don’t green up in spring. Balmy winter temperatures sets mite metabolisms into overdrive, and by this time of year, populations can reach several thousand per square foot.

This damage is often mis-diagnosed as winterkill or desiccation. If you’ve had mite damaged lawn, take a quick look to see if they’ve returned. Check the base of the plant for congregations of them during the day.

If you see them, irrigate the lawn to raise humidity or check with a local lawn care company for stronger treatments. Snow cover doesn’t put a stop to their feeding, since it provides protection, but as it melts, the moisture helps drive off the mites.

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Today’s sing along: Caught in a bad romance

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As Valentine’s Day rolls around, a frenzied celebration of love grips us.  Wooing and winning take center stage as lovers come out to play, booking cozy restaurants and spending time on activities to heighten attraction.  These snuggles bring smiles to almost every face; that is, unless you’ve been burned by cupid like Lady Gaga, and caught in a bad romance. 

Like the famed pop diva, not every date is roses and candy, especially if you’re an insect.  The next time you’re feeling blue, look at our six-legged friends, and you might not feel so bad about your love life.

Follow my lead

Dancing With The Stars might be a popular show, but it could be a lot more interesting if they’d pair the dancers with a preying mantis.  The hypothesis that the female rips the head from the male during copulation is not entirely true; it all depends on how hungry she is.  If not fed prior to her date, she might tear the male apart, to nibble on as a post-coital snack.

To overcome this unfortunate fate, the Chinese preying mantis waltzes the female around, hoping to turn her thoughts from dinner to delight.  If he’s light on his feet, the male escapes to woo another lady, but if he trips up, he won’t be returning for a reunion show.

She’s just not into you

Picking up on her mood is hazardous for ground beetles, who say no with a chemical weapon.  When bugged by amorous suitors, less inclined females rebuff would-be mates with an anti-aphrodisiac, methacrylic acid, which knocks males out for hours.  Stunned and helpless, the males serve as a warning to others.

Date my daughter, or else

Blind dates can be hit or miss, but if you’re a honey bee, they’re downright life threatening.  In a typical small hive, one queen oversees twenty thousand female workers.   Males, called drones, are few – up to 200.  Though outnumbered, young drones’ lives are cushy, tended by workers, pampered for the day their services are needed. 

When that day dawns, drones are offered a choice: go forth and mate, or stay here and die.  On their own, they gather in groups, lounging around a bee equivalent of a pickup bar until young queens take flight.  When this happens, males launch, streaking after them to mate. 

If growing up an idle boy toy sounds grand, consider the bride; queens hatch with an attitude.  Those emerging first destroy any un-hatched queens, fight rival royal siblings to the death, contemplate matricide, then take off on a mating flight.  They say personality is everything.

If males are lucky and catch her, the job is a death sentence; unable to disengage, they break off their appendage and plunge earthward, dying.  She sails on, entertaining drone after drone until sated.

Despite these cautionary tales, love is still a many splendored thing. But just in case, remember to pick up the roses and chocolate.

This post was previously published in the Longmont Ledger.

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Spider myths a scream

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Halloween is rolling around, when tales of spiders abound, weaving stories of the danger from these beneficial arachnids.  Take a closer look, and you’ll realize most of what you hear are myths.

A belief in medieval Europe held that the bite from a wolf spider caused tarantism, a condition where the victim jitters around in an uncontrollable dance, eventually collapsing in exhaustion after three or four days.  This myth helped solidified human fear of spiders.  Yet even though we have such a condition running rampant today, I don’t see anyone hanging effigies of Lady Gaga out to scare people on Halloween.

From some reactions to the sight of a spider, you’d think they were carting off young children instead of flies for feasts on the neighborhood web.  This is nonsense: as any adult knows, it’s hard to hold a squirming toddler when you weigh 150 pounds, much less 3 grams. 

That’s where venom comes in.  Like parking the kid in front of the television, venom keeps prey quiet and semi-conscious until the spider can eat or wrap it up for later (this scenario is anecdotal; I’m not suggesting you park your child or stun it with venom).  Almost all spiders are venomous, but the majority aren’t harmful to humans.

Did you hear the one about the black widow always killing her mate?  Though generally not true, this is my favorite myth whenever I need to remind my spouse of the dangers of annoying me.  In reality, of the black widows in the USA, only one is known to kill the male after courtship: the eastern ones, Latrodectus mactans.  Western widows consider it rude to dine on their dates. 

Yet even eastern males often make a clean getaway.  That is, unless she’s hungry – a state that drives females of many species to murderous action.  But if he’s careful and she’s well fed, she won’t kill him. 

Does everybody swallow spiders in their sleep?  According to snopes.com, this myth started in 1993 as a magazine columnist’s demonstration on how anything can be said in email spam lists and gullible people believe it.

Spiders don’t have any reason to get into our mouths, unless you go around with it hanging open so insects can live there.  They prefer drier locations, ones that don’t snore or mumble. 

The biggest myth state spider experts hear is that the Brown Recluse (Loxosceles reclusa) is here in Colorado.  This is completely false, according to Dr. Paula Cushing, Department Chair and Curator of invertebrate Zoology at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science.  Though the black widow is everywhere, few people ask her about it.  Instead, she fields hundreds of questions on brown recluse, a spider whose bite can cause a wound that grows but won’t heal. 

Colorado isn’t part of its natural range, but due to the miracle of the internet, many people think it’s here.  Occasionally it hitchhikes into the state on lumber or in moving boxes, but so far it hasn’t established colonies and settled down to raise families.

Learn more about spiders on the museum’s Spider Survey website.

This post was previously published in the Longmont Ledger.

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Wasps swarm trees for honeydew

Yellow jackets, a wasp that gets very aggressive late in the season, eat many types of sugars and meats.  Their predilection for sweets creates an interesting phenomenon in fall around trees that are plagued by aphids.   Wasps swarm the tree, flying about in such numbers that homeowners are very afraid.

To understand the wasp, first you need to know the aphids – small, soft bodied, sap-sucking pests of many plants found on most shrubs and trees in our area.  We have several hundred species of these insects, which come in a variety of sizes and colors, from green to black, purple, and red. 

Aphids are greedy feeders, pulling out the sap of the tree so quickly their tiny bodies can’t process all of it.  What isn’t used flows out their back end in a sticky, sugary liquid entomologists politely dub “honeydew.”  Wasps love this yummy treat, lapping up the sugar snack without a thought to its origin.

 If you have a problem with wasps flying around a tree, check it for large numbers of honeydew producing insects – most likely aphids but it could be scale.  The honeydew is what the wasps are after. 

A similar behavior occurred this summer, with wasps scavenging along tomato plants.  On closer observation, I discovered that the wasps were gleaning lerps from the plants, which is excrement left by a different sap sucking insect called psyllids.  Unlike honeydew, lerps is solid, resembling sugar crystals and apparently tasting like them too.

That’s a sweet tooth that’s out of control. 

There’s little to be done about the tree at this time, since the leaves will fall soon and the aphids will go into dormancy.  The time for action is next year, just before budbreak, when you could apply dormant oil to the tree to try and smother aphid eggs.  The wasps will eventually die off, leaving only the queen to survive winter.

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Life sucking garden fiends

Some of today’s hottest movies and television shows feature blood sucking creatures out of myth.  Vampires roam through this current pop culture craze, lulling us into thinking they’re harmless, even beautiful creatures that are woefully misunderstood (“they’re sparkling!” my son – a monster purist – moaned in outrage).  

If you were a plant, you’d know the dark truth:  blood sucking creatures do exist, feeding off the life source of ill fated victims.  Dodder and mistletoe stalk the stems of our foliaged friends, and if you don’t come to their rescue, your plants will succumb.

Often called strangleweed, devil’s-guts, and hellbine, dodder (Cuscuta and Grammica spp.) is a parasitic plant that lives off the chlorophyll of others, such as chrysanthemums, dahlias, trumpet-vines, and petunias.  As a seed, it’s harmless and unassuming, lying in wait for a host to take root nearby.  Upon germinating, the seedling gropes about until it touches its victim, then quickly clutches it in a deadly embrace.  

Snuggling up to its chosen host, dodder checks to see if it has the right chemistry and if the prey “tastes” right, dodder implants itself into the host with haustoria.  Through these root-like extensions, the hellbine feeds, drawing water and food from the hapless plant.  When implantation is complete, dodder continues to vine up and over the victim, letting go of its connection to the soil below.

Though it doesn’t have the public relations power of its holiday cousin, dwarf mistletoe (Arceuthobium spp.) is a well-known parasite in Colorado forests.  Like dodder, these leafless plants lives off those we love by colonizing Douglas fir and ponderosa, limber, pinyon and lodgepole pines. 

Implanting itself into the trees with “sinkers,” dwarf mistletoe slowly drains the life out of its host (something my son can relate to, having endured this summer’s popular vampire romance movie to please his date).  Look for the yellow- or brown-green segmented shoots rising from infested branches.

To please those who feel dread creatures just need a little understanding, let’s look on the bright side of these parasites.  Dodder is a pretty little plant with slender, delicate stems of yellow or orange (occasionally they’re blushed a trifle red, but ignore that – it isn’t blood).  Though it has no leaves, it does flower, wreathing itself in pinks, whites, and yellow to disguise the fact that it’s producing new spawn from seed. 

And dwarf mistletoe has one trick that’s a sure crowd pleaser:  it spreads its seeds by canon fire.  Blasted from their fruit at near 60 mph, the young splatter the forest in a gluey mass, sticking to anything they hit: branches, birds, or hikers.  If it happens to be a suitable host, the seeds germinate and begin to feed.  Watch for this phenomenon in August and September.

 Drive a stake through the parasite if you’d like, but control for either really relies on removal.  Prune off infested tree branches or pull and destroy dodder infested plants. 

This post was previously published in the Longmont Ledger.

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Let them eat parsley and dill!

 Normally, when an insect attacks the vegetable garden a gardener’s revenge is swift and decisive. Although we don’t mind sharing, some bugs take more than their portion, stripping plants to the point where we have to show them the door – or the neighbor’s garden – and order them to leave.

But this summer a beloved insect is back on the plants, nibbling on members of the carrot family and delighting everyone who sees them. Blaring their presence with a striping of black, white, and yellow, the parsleyworm (Papilio polyxenes) is one visitor you might want to let stick around.

When little, this caterpillar’s coloration has it dressed up like bird droppings, something that makes predators think twice before eating it. If the predator is determined to chomp them, the parsleyworm has another trick up its sleeve: they push a pair of orange, smelly “horns” from their head. As long as you’re not sniffing their head when they do this, it’s an endearing trick.

Yes, they’re eating the parsley. And the dill, fennel, and carrots. This is a small price to pay for nurturing the Black Swallowtail butterfly, which is what these very hungry caterpillars grow into. Should you want to control them, pick them from the plant or spray with Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt), an organic insecticide.

But if you choose to let these lovely creatures live to become adults, don’t worry if your caterpillars disappear from the plants. After stuffing themselves, the caterpillars roam about, looking for a place to spin their chrysalis in which to pupate. You’ll see your parsleyworm again, this time as an adult, a large black butterfly with yellow and blue spots.

 Flitting through the garden, sipping nectar and visiting flowers, this butterfly and its two close relatives, Tiger Swallowtails, are as welcome as fireworks on the Fourth of July. Attracting them to your garden is simple: plant food for the caterpillars to eat, such as parsley, carrots, or dill for Black Swallowtails and willow, green ash, or chokecherry for Tiger Swallowtails. Don’t forget to add in flowers to give adults nectar to sip, particularly butterfly bush (Buddleia spp.), geraniums, butterfly weed (Asclepias spp.), or zinnia.

After all, you don’t mind sharing, do you?

This post was previously published in the Longmont Ledger.

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