[Marilyn]

Janet, I'm so glad you started this thread and don't mind us highjackers. LOL.

We're so glad to learn of the nematodes. We have such issues with fire ants and our next door neighbor has a couple of flea bitten dogs in a dog run adjacent to ours. So if nematodes kill flea and fire ant larvae, we're getting some.

With our mild climate, we have to work harder to keep things looking nice because we don't get the cleansing freezes that you do to kill the bugs and things.

We really don't pay a lot for the services we have. We use hardworking local folks who we have known for years. Since times are getting tighter, it would be nice to let them go and do it ourselves, but they need the business to pay their bills. We may cut the lawncare and tree guy back to just the trees though, since his lawncare has failed so miserably. We'll keep the guy who mows the lawn. His fallback job is hair styling which may be hurting also with the strained economy. The tree guy's wife co-owns, with her brother, a Chrystler/Jeep dealership. Her brother lives in our neighborhood. So they are not as dependant on us as the mower is.