Your Home, Garden and Travel

So where were the roses? The roses didn't go anywhere, but they suffered the yearly attack of the Japanese Beetles. This year, I tried a different approach in caring for the roses during the invasion.

These are Knock Out™ Roses, which means they are pretty tough and bloom for a long time. As soon as I saw the first beetle, I cut off all of the blooms and a foot of foliage on all seven of the rose bushes. It wasn't pretty! Without the blooms, new buds and new growth to attract the beetles, there were fewer of the pests.

When the beetle population dwindled to just a few, I started up the drip irrigation for an hour a day (we're on a well) until we had a good rainfall. Just prior to the heavy rainfall, I fertilized the roses. Within two weeks of this boost, the roses are now producing new foliage and plenty of buds.

In past years, I've tried picking and dunking the beetles into a bucket of soapy water every morning. It's unpleasant work, tedious and is rather disgusting to do before breakfast!

I've tried organic sprays, too. That required mixing and spraying in the evening when the temperatures were cool. I had to reapply the spray every few days, especially after a rainfall. It worked fairly well, but since the mixture couldn't be sprayed on the blooms, I had to cut those off anyway.

This year's method was the easiest. While the roses looked bad for a month, they have completely recovered and will bloom until Thanksgiving.

This method of beetle protection was without stress, at no cost and definitely organic. I'll always be looking for better solutions. The only other thing that I could think of was to cover the roses with a fine mesh netting. Maybe next year?

Photo and words by Freda Cameron; Location: home garden; July 2009

I never thought about combining black and white flowers until I visited the Giverny Musée des Impressionismes in France. The garden worked well as a separate garden room within low walls and hedges. The space was tranquil and not jarring as I would have expected with such contrast. I liked it, but the flowers weren't labeled, so we have to guess as potential candidates for this color scheme.

Obviously, some of the "black" flowers are very dark red or purple enough to look black. There were many white and black tulips, black pansies, white forget-me-nots and what looked like varieties of shasta daisies and erigeron.

The trick to finding the right white and black flowers is probably in identifying plants that will bloom at the same time and with the same growing conditions with regards to soil, water and light.



What went through my head was the meticulous planting of the interspersed black and white tulips! The gardeners had to keep track of the separate colors. They most likely measured the distance between the bulbs in order to establish the meandering design.

Planting annuals in bloom would be easier for establishing the design, but planting enough to create the masses would be a tedious task. These gardens (I'm guessing) were probably planted by volunteer gardeners.

Getting out of our own gardens to see the creations of others gives us new ideas. Do you have a black and white flower garden? Do you want one? If so, what plants have you/would you select for your garden?


Photos and story by Freda Cameron; Location: Giverny (village), France; May 2009

This is the first summer that I've sown zinnia seeds. The success rate and beauty of these annuals has convinced me that these are great flowers for the garden and for cutting. Zinnias have earned their way into my garden from now on!

I've focused on the taller varieties such as Benary's Giant Purple and Giant Lilac as well as Lilac Emperor Cactus Flowered and a few other miscellaneous types.

The tall varieties that are 30-36 inches tall fit in well with perennial salvias such as 'Black & Blue' and 'Mystic Spires'. The zinnias are also easy to mix with other plants with spire-shaped blooms such as agastache 'Heather Queen' and 'Purple Pygmy'.

This year's color scheme has been based on deep rose/magenta to light pink and purple blooms. I also have a few of the green blooms and have recently sown Giant White (not yet in bloom).

As sometimes happens with seeds, there is one "stray" in the mix, but it is such a pleasant golden yellow/orange zinnia that I want to use it in a mass planting.

I will mix hot colors of zinnias in the butterfly garden next summer. I've not had a problem with deer eating the zinnias, but the seedlings must be protected from rabbits until the flowers are tall enough to be out of reach.

Since early May, I've been direct sowing the seeds about every two weeks in the cottage garden and even out in the deer resistant garden to see how quickly they germinate and bloom. I try to sow the seeds right after, or right before, a good rainfall. Keeping the seeds moist in full sun works well for starting the zinnia seeds.

With annuals this pretty and this reliable, I may move a few perennials from one of the cottage garden beds to make room for more zinnias. Next year, I won't be so tentative about when and where to plant the zinnias! I want huge mass plantings for more impact instead of a scattering here and there.

One more thing... I love to photograph these blooms!


Photos and words by Freda Cameron; Location: home garden; July 2009.

Over the last few months, I've received the exact same message from folks who have my email address. The message was roughly "I'm stuck in England without my wallet, please send cash." Since I had a long career in information technology (IT) I knew a scam when I saw one.

While the spam scams look like legitimate email accounts of people you know, these are actually spoofed addresses. I know how to look at the full message header of an email to see the real addresses. These emails did not come from the person or the email address that you recognize!

In other words, if you reply to that scam message, you are not replying to the real owner of the email! You are replying to a hidden email address. Then... they have YOUR verification that your email address is real. To email the REAL person about the email, you need to create a separate email message and tell them.

DO NOT REPLY to the spoofed email! Delete the message. Write a new and separate email message to the owner of the account to tell them what you received. They can change the password to their account and inform their email provider.

Since the address looks like a legitimate email address, if you mark it as spam, then you won't receive the emails from the real owners of the addresses.

How does a scammer/spammer get your email address? Typically what happens is that someone opens an email that contains an attachment or image that unleashes a malicious program. That program "reads" the entire contact list stored in the address book... first names, last names and email addresses. The program collects the data and sends it back to the spammer/scammer who is then able to then "write" emails to every address collected.

If you get a scam email, it doesn't necessarily really mean that the owner's email account was hacked. It could be that their email address was picked up in someone else's contact list. What could also be happening is that one of the social media websites (forums, chat rooms, etc.) could have been hacked to obtain all of the email addresses.

What does the scam text inside the email message say?

†††
Hello,

How are you doing? Hope all is well with you and your family, I am sorry I didn't inform you about my traveling to England for a Seminar/conference.

I need a favor from you as soon as you receive this email, I misplaced my wallet on my way to the hotel where my money, and other valuable things were kept. Can you urgently assist me with a soft loan of $2,600 US Dollars to sort-out my hotel bills and get myself back home. You are the only one I can trust with this, please can this be between us? You have my word; I will refund you as soon as I return.

I will appreciate whatever you can afford, I'll pay you back as soon as I return I promise, Let me know if you can assist, to enable me send you the details to use in sending the money through western union.

With gusto,

†††

Whenever an email sounds suspicious, it probably is.

When I first starting seeing this scam, I removed my email address from my blog. That's why my "Drop me a note" widget is missing from my blog. It is also a possibility that a "bot" crawled the blogs looking for standard email addresses and the email tag within the html source code of the web pages.

I don't know if anyone has received one of these from my email address, but just in case... I'm not in England either. I'm home!

Freda Cameron