Monsieurmousseux

Ah, but it's not quite as easy as that ... There are over 200 kinds of verbena, both hardy and tender perennials. The further north you are, the more likely it is that you will grow it as an annual. Chrissie will find a lot more info here: http://www.botany.com/verbena.html

Or if you just wait long enough, Arnold, they'll eventually send you an invoice. Chill out, lay back, and do it the French way!

I think Wicce is being misled by your avatar photo, Chrissie, which does look like a marguerite to me. Since there are numerous kinds of verbena, could you do an image search on Google and post a picture of your plant (as it was last year)? The most common ones at the moment seem to be the Tapien type, which are generally grown as annuals, although some of ours have actually survived the -10ºC we experienced during February. And yes, the weather on the 32/82 border is foul, too, though as Patf said, things are really zooming along, and the rain and cool weather are certainly helping the new fruit trees we planted to settle in.

Back in the UK, white grubs I used to find in turves, or under the lawn, were leatherjackets almost always. These have a greyish shade to them, though.

Vine weevil grubs are only about 1 cm in length. The cockchafer grubs are larger by far. The problem is telling the stag beetle grubs from the cockchafer ones. As I researched this further, I came across a useful website, with numerous pictures of both adult and larval stages of various wood-loving insects. Click here. (See also the page that follows this one). It also crossed my mind - rather late in the day - that the larvae we are finding in our compost heaps (or pots of old compost) are hardly likely to be a danger to our structural woodwork, as there seems to me to be no reason why a beam-chomping insect would lay its eggs in a compost heap! So, whatever our big, fat, white grubs are, I doubt that they'll be the cause of your roof collapsing.

We, too, have found fat white grubs with brown heads in both compost heaps and in the (bought) compost in pots, especially containing last year's geraniums. Neither of the two pictures above seems to be the right one, and I'm still trying to sort out what they are. Vine weevil larvae also abound, and I remember this being a huge problem in the UK, when a Midlands fuchsia grower had his entire stock wiped out by the little herberts. Nothing is too evil for these grubs! I'm afraid I either despatch them with the boot or collect them and put them in a plant-pot saucer for the birds. The mystery grubs I refer to are about an inch in length, and, unlike the cockchafer grub shown, do not seem to have a heavily patterned back, but remain smooth. They move very slowly, but can "escape" if you don't keep your eye on them. We tried to rear one in a jar of roots last year, but the poor beast died after several weeks. The comment above about the unpleasant results of squashing the blighters certainly applies. Keep your face well away! Any help in identifying them would be appreciated, as we value our wildlife, and do all we can to encourage diversity. On the other hand, I don't want anything noshing through our roof beams!

Perhaps these pictures will help. First, a cockchafer grub:   And now a stag beetle larva:   Enjoy your meal!

Do you think George W. has advertised a property with VF?? I mean, check this out! http://tinyurl.com/aunlc

I updated successfuly just after Quillan's 12:54 post, so they were not offline for long, it would seem. I tried to post at the time, but I didn't succeed for some reason I can't remember. (That happens a lot these days ... Me not remembering things, I mean ...)

Indeed. Thank you.

[quote]Got to many comlaints and people not accepting his excusses or him not actually answering questions properly. By the way I got a booking last week, the first one this year through them. Don't think I...[/quote] What with mascamps saying that he will certainly not tell us what sites he is using successfully and now Quillan saying he's getting loads of bookings from unnamed sites, I'm beginning to feel really inadequate!! Paul (Who's without a single internet booking this year) Edit: What on earth has happened to the "quote" facility?

I just updated on VF, and was about to read up the postings on their message board, when I realised that the link to click through is no longer there. The forum is still there if you enter the URL, or click through from another link, but unless I'm losing my marbles more rapidly than I thought, VF doesn't want to play any more.

I have commented on this over on the thread concerned. I didn't realise straightaway, but a post of mine which followed Quillan's has also been pulled, along with the "here, here" post. I suppose they wouldn't have made sense without Quillan's post, anyway.

I do hope Ben at VF is reading this. Although, given the complete silence from the company on their own forum, I doubt it would make the slightest difference. If I lived over there, I might be thinking of paying a visit.

Quillan is right about them being a small company who take a long time to respond to anything. They even kept our ad live for months after the trial expired. Even when I took a long time to pay for the year's ad, they did not chase me. (It was due to computer breakdown, by the way!) And as for costs, I paid £116.32 in February for our year's ad.