Hey everyone..yeah its been a while since I last posted anything, its been a busy period in my life. My son is now 16 months old and entering an exciting stage in his life as he is walking and learning to talk. He calls me "papa" although he also refers to the teddy bear as "papa", although Im not sure this is a coincidence as Im prob as round as the teddy bear!

The downside of course has been that I have rather neglected my orchids. Ive actually not bought any new plants in almost 6 months. Im rather surprised at that myself. Well, recently I noticed that my dendrobes had not flowered for a while and after some investigation found that all the flower buds had been nipped off. I initially suspected a little bird that lives around my area which is infamous for nipping off flower buds as it wrongly mistakes them for insects, however I began to think otherwise when I realised that all my other plants were flowering apart from my dendrobes and it was finally confirmed when I found the dreaded yellow beetle (lema pectoralis) chowing down on my phal violacea (blue)! I found another on an asco and promptly brought death upon them! Now im pissed...I also found a huge mealy bug infestation on my variegated yucca and japanese roses!

Anyone have any tips on effectively wiping these evil bugs from my garden? I just bought some insecticide with cypermethrin as an active ingredient to deal with the beetles and I plan to kill the mealy bugs with some washing detergent mixed with water and maybe a few blasts from my roach killer. They seemed to work the last time.

Im now dying to go back and annhilate them!

Counting down the hours before I can go home....