It took me three years of concentrated effort to finally kill off the last of that @!$&! plant in my yard. Awful I tell you.

They are predicting a low of 44 degrees tonight so the OC windows are tightly closed. Nothing else to worry about.

We had a nice choir performance in church this morning, then a hospital visit with some singing friends whose 94 year old mother suffered a fall and finally a nursing home sing-a-long event that was well received. Good day. Now it is football and a glass of Cabernet/Syrah blend from Washington state. Life is good.

Jim

Clerodendrons are beautiful but evil. I have spent years getting rid of thomsonaie, splendens and bungei. C. ugandense is the only one that doesn't make a pest of itself here in my garden. Japanese wisteria is beautiful also but it is considered a noxious weed here second only to kudzu.

So right, I have two others the Pagoda, and C.incisa aka Musical Notes. Probably the only reason those ones haven't gotten away on me is that they are planted in large, sunk pots. The Shooting Stars has been relatively restrained, too considering how huge the original plants are. Oak tree roots everywhere are most likely holding them back somewhat.

I have an interesting, and new to me, problem on a mature crape myrtle. One of the trunks has these ugly growths all the way up one of the trunks. I have read of bark scale and the bark did look strange but there was no visible scale. Have any of you seen this before? I am sending these photos off to the big guns at Clemson for their opinion also.

That does look really strange, Alice. Like some kind of gall, but galls can be caused by insects and also by disease. The channel running up between the galls is curious too, looks like something a termite might make.

Being the curious person I am, I wouldn't be able to leave them alone. I'd take a sharp instrument and cut into one just to see if there's something in there. Or cut one off, take it into the house (as long as nothing crawls out first) and look at it with a magnifier. Hope your Clemson boffins have an answer for you!

LOL, the Clemson boffins are all in AZ getting ready for the BIG game today. I'll have to wait for football fever to subside.

Oh darn! Now I'm really curious. You're not going to keep us in suspense until tomorrow, are you?

Surely if you just cut off one of those bumps, it wouldn't hurt the tree any more than, say, cutting off a branch would it?

LOL, so far all I have gotten is that they are probably galls. Personally I have never seen galls follow a path up a tree.

I am a wuss and it is only 49 degrees outside so no amputating knobby bumps today.

Elaine, Clemson lost the big game so everyone is back to work. The Clemson boffin thought it was scarring but he sent it off to a CM boffin in FL who agreed it is scarring. I don't get it myself and will send a sample off to the clinic. This is the response, Gary is the guy from FL.

"Just heard back from Gary. He has seen it before, and agrees with my guess that it might be some kind of scars or scarring response. From the pictures, the crape myrtle seems to suffer from some previous wound that healed over, and the 'bumps' are associated with the wound. I don't think it is diseased. Of course, a sample could always be sent to the Plant Problem Clinic for diagnosis.

If the crape myrtles are not declining, I would leave them be but keep an eye on them."

Alice, that bumpy branch would make a very cool walking stick/cane or two...know any wood carvers??

LOL Patty, you are right. A few years ago I learned about Diamond Willow and the awesome walking sticks that makes. I wonder how CM wood would do? Actually we do plan to take down a huge Crape Myrtle Muskogee that is just too big for the spot it is in. The trunks are enormous, each measuring around 9" in diameter. We have been trying to think of something clever to do with that wood also.

Use that wood, rip-cut and cross-cut to make mounts, Alice.

The CM Muskogee is about 30' tall, that would be a lot of mounts. Wish you were closer and could share in this bounty.

Me too. I have never had Crape Myrtle to work with. I is a pretty, blond, dense wood and should hold up well as a mount. Some have gnarly shapes, and I like that.

I have a couple of crape myrtle mounts and like them very much.

Jim

Last February I was given three cuttings of a "Pitcher Plant". Eleven months later, I have one pitcher plant that rooted/survived. This Nepenthes alata is a cute little thing and four of its leaves are now growing these pitchers. The largest pitcher is only about an inch long and the four leaves have four stages of growth. Isn't that just neat! This plant has never had anything but tap water. It just got watered and fertilized when my orchids did. Now that it is growing up, I will be able to park it under an oak tree in the spring and it will then get some rainwater as well as tap.

Cute!

Diversification at work, Ursula.

I always manage to kill them after a short time. Best of luck as it looks fine so far.

Jim