It looks very neat. You should give her back the flower beds next year though.

Helen, who's side are you on. You can see she still has her flower bed, I just built my garden around it. I don't even charge her a toll for wading through my potatoes to check her flowers. She has 3 other beds I built her, that woman is making out like a bandit.

When you're weak and need surgery, others should not lay claim to your flower bed. The potatoes are probably getting water and are a good cover for the soil keeping weeds out. So I guess it is OK. Amend her beds with the good stuff.

Well, if I have to. That Gal gets about anything she wants. I just try to look mean when she is not looking. I have to be good to her or I will starve to death.

Love the hibiscus. Now that we've gotten the Japanese Beetles knocked down to a manageable level, I need to start taking care of mine again. For 4-5 years hardly a flower opened. They were eaten in the bud by those nefarius beetles.

I noticed tonight that the JBs were going after pepper vine. Now if I can sic them on Johnson grass, cinnamon vine and thistles, I'll have it made. One year I didn't get all the weedy vines off my rose o Sharon and JBs preferred them to the Rose o Sharon buds.

Dorothy, I don't know what has changed with the Japanese Beetles, but I have had very few for two years now. The two or three years before that my hollyhocks and grape leaves looked like lace and then they hit the bean plants. Not so, for 2 years now.

Us too. I think it was in 08 that we spread 9 beetle traps around the place and went to Calif for 10 days. When we got back every trap was full and some over full with beetles at the top of the hourglass shaped funnel and flying back out. That was the worst year. Ever since has been better and this year 3 traps are only 1/4 full after 2 weeks. We also hand picked several during that week long spell of mornings in the 50s and 60s. Now we pick no more than a couple dozen a day which is almost nothing. It's fine by me. I have cannas blooming and the green beans are barely bothered. YAY!!

Love that hibiscus. Do you know what variety it is. Had one that I caught on sale at walmart for 5 bucks. Bloomed great big blooms like that one but the heat got it I guess. Cant remember what variety it was. Am looking for another like it if you can help me remember? oh and im not gettin in on the fight about the flower beds. but I know i am a redneck in so many ways and very proud of it!

I am sure it is a Southern Belle, I have been growing them from the 1960's. I have had some up to a 11" bloom, but I don't work with them anymore. At one time one time I had white, pink and maroon. In the 60's I had one to mutate and produce two colors on the same bush. I guess I could plant two close together and get the same look.

I have had good luck buying them from Neumeier's nursery in Ft. Smith.

We have that exact same looking hibiscus in our front yard that we just purchased. They're just now blooming 8-10" red blooms.

But anyway, Slowpoke, where did you haul those shavings from? Were you meaning from somewhere on your property or somewhere in the city that gives it away or sells it?

Dulahey, there is an old fellow about 8 miles south of me that has an attachment hooked to the back of his tractor that he uses to cut shims for the coal mines. I go by from time to time to see if he has any shavings, and haul them off. I also haul shredded leaves and bamboo from my Uncle's place. I am very fond of free stuff, even if I have to work a little to get it.

Larry, I'm a proud redneck too. I also sneak edible plants into all the flower beds, but I also sneak flowers into all the beds of edibles. There's not really any dedicated flower beds any more because I cannot resist putting something edible in them.

I have a similar hibiscus in bloom right now too, though I don't remember now if it is Southern Belle or Dixie Belle. I raised them both from seed sowed early in 2011, and this is the sole survivor from a half-dozen or so that I put into the ground. I dug it up and moved it this year because it was in a place where it wasn't going to be irrigated in the hot months, and I didn't think it would survive in that location.

I cannot believe your wife didn't just "take back" her flower beds and then dare you to stop her. lol I suppose she cannot complain as long as you are building her new flower beds.

Carol and Dorothy, I wonder if the JB's population will ebb and flow over the years like the grasshopper population does?

Helen, If JB's would eat Johnson grass, I'd import them and release them here.

It is so hot here now. I don't know how the pests can tolerate the heat, but they seem to like it. It seems like, that for many of the garden pests we see, the heat speeds up their reproduction so that we end up with tons and tons of certain pests as the summer goes on.

Dawn