my big jade plant

is still alive, surprisingly. Several weeks ago I gave up trying to kill the aphids on it, but couldn't bear to throw the plant away. Stuck it outside on the deck in a corner. Forgot about it for a while. It only gets rain. Sun scorched for a while, recovered from that. Then I started dropping spiders on it. If I catch one in the house. Wolf spiders, small jumping spiders that hunt. I don't see them again- except for one tiny one with a furry gray and while face that looks like a little ewok, that bitty one hangs around the deck planter boxes. Jade plant seems to be doing better now- it has fewer leaves puckering and falling off, and more new growth. I don't see nearly as many aphids on it. I'm game to leaving it out here where the garden predators can help out, but wonder if bringing it back inside in fall will just make the problem crop up again in the shelter of indoors...

I had to throw away two of those overwintered pepper plants, from disease. Still have this oldest one .... Also into the trash due to insect-caused disease: over half my young celosia plants,

and two-thirds of the sweet potato vine cuttings. This bunch of it I'm keeping in a pot, is doing okay so far- you can see on the far right some puckered leaves that had that look of insect damage- I pinched them off and the withering has not spread. There's another pot of it on the porch that looks much worse- but I think I found the culprit today- I'd been looking for aphids and whitefly on undersides, but instead found a leafhopper bug.

Saddest of all, I no longer have any pretty ginger. I think it dried up in the winter- I went too sparingly on the watering. Never sprouted again this spring. I did love that plant.