9/6/11
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| zinnias |
While I was gone on vacation for a week, my zinnias developed a problem. The leaves and stems have turned brown. When I inspected them, I found small white insects. I have been very lucky that I have had very few problems during all my gardening years, so I am not familiar with many pests. I researched several pests on the internet, and my best guess is mealy bugs. I used a hard water spray to dislodge them, and if that is not enough, I may use a rubbing alcohol and water spray, or a dish detergent and alcohol spray.
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| mealy bugs? |
A second problem is that my purple fountain grasses are not looking their best. They were planted last summer and did well. I pruned them to 8 inches at the beginning of spring. They grew nicely. But sometime in July the seed heads turned completely white. And then a few weeks later, half of them lost their seed heads and all of them lost their purple color and are now completely green. So now I have these 4 foot clumps of green grass. Help! I have no idea what has happened. What can I do to get their purple color back, and why did half of them lose their seed heads?
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| purple fountain grass last summer |
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| seed heads turned white |
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| lost seed heads and turned green |
