I had a hornworm happily eating my baby brugmansia that I'm overwintering on my bay window!! It was not too big, maybe an inch and a half, but it was just too freaky having a hornworm in my living room!!

BTW, I HATE slugs!!! I have just recently started to 'warm up' to worms. It must be something about the slimy look that I really don't like.

Monica

I rooted a fiscus tree from prunings two years ago. I put it outside last summer to get some real growth on it. When I brought it in, I used soda bottle caps under the pot to keep it off the hardwood floors. When I moved it to do some painting, there were hundreds of dead pill bugs underneath the pot on the floor. I also get a lot of them in the basement since it's a walk-out. It's just gross to move something after only a couple weeks and find their carcasses all over the place.

I thought bugs were vile until I did a little research. Upon doing so, I found each one fascinating. It's escalated into a hobby and I look up each one I come across to get a better understanding.

Slugs I can do without but the scrub jay will follow me around the garden in hopes I'll over turn a pot for a morsel. The black beetles I find scurrying around are predators for slugs and snails.

Pill bugs, also known as sow bugs or rollie pollies, are a member of the crustacean family. They eat dead debris in the garden. They do not destroy plants. They also carry their babies in a pouch.

Hornworms are really cool. Especially if you raise one. They turn into beautiful moths which are important to the garden, they pollinate flowers at night. Here's one I raised. It's a humming bird moth
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The more I learn about bugs the more I see the complete circle and vital roll they play in my garden.

Edna

Bugs don't freak me out.
They sometimes tick me off.

I don't mind bugs in general. I like worms and always save them if I see them in the driveway or something. I do not mind black beetles. I don't mind 'rolly-pollies' either. But I hate slugs and grubs! Ick. I am also rather bothered by spiders, but not as much as some people. We have Hobo spiders in the basement, and boy are those freaky! They are big enought to trip over (okay, not really). But they are smart little buggers.
CMK

Once when cleaning up my garden in fall, I reached under a shrub to pull out old leaves, etc. and pulled out a recently dead, decomposing mouse. . . with my bare hands. Oh YUK YUK YUK YUK!

We put our houseplants out on the porch or decks each summer and every time we have hitchhikers when we bring them back inside in the fall. Ours are anoles - lizards that change color depending on their environment and temperature and (no kidding) emotional state.

It can be a little disconcerting when one of those dashes across the floor unexpectedly and they do upset our pets sometimes.

I only really mind them when they crawl on me in bed at night. Yes, that has happened.

-lindakimy, OMG that is horrible!

We have had a mouse problem here for the past few years, especially in the fall. I don't mind mice (hey, I was raised on Beatrix Potter, where mice talk!)as long as they are OUTSIDE. Sometimes I even name the outdoor mice. But when they are indoors it is distrubing!
The mice we get here are the humorous sort. Some of them like to pop up from the burners in the stove! Thank goodness I have never had them on when that has happened!
CMK

Mice in the house scare the daylights out of me. I always think I am going to get that virus that you get from breathing around the urine and droppings of mice and rats. I catch a lot of them every year.

Today, I discovered that a mouse has chewed the cord for my mouse. He won't be chewing much for long!

The scariest thing I ever brought in was a snake in a pot plant. Not a big snake (or so DH said), about 3 1/2 feet long, but it looked HUGE to me! It just snaked out of that pot right in front of me, and I about keeled over!

I am better about bugs, and I protect many insects around here. I agree about ikky slugs and grub worms. The grub worms become June bugs, and they are disgusting! Slugs are just disgusting. Cockroaches in my house face certain death! I regard them as disease carriers, just like the mice.

Janie

I don't find anything in the garden disgusting - after all it's just Nature doing its thing. Snails are not disgusting - but goodness they are ANNOYING! Guess why I've given up on hostas.
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-Flora, that is horrible! I have never seen a snail in these parts thank goodness. Have you tried putting some rough gravel around the plants?
About ten years ago, during a particularly wet summer, I found the biggest slug I ever seen. It must have been eight inches long and was nearly two inches thick. Ick!
CMK

These guys laugh at gravel - in fact they laugh at anything short of slug pellets which I don't like to use. In the Winter you can find hibernaculums full of snails waiting to come out in the Spring and start chomping again. Slugs and snail come out top of the nuisance list for British gardeners whenever there is a poll. But they love it here because of the rain and without the rain we would not have our green gardens.

For some reason slugs have stopped being repulsive to me. When they are looked at closely with their little "horns" up going about their business they are quite comical and so I just give them a nice soapy bath and thats that,lol.
Earwigs have yet to present any redeeming features, while on the phone with a Buddist friend she picked one up in her kitchen but before she got it to the door to set it free it pinched her finger which remained sore for a week so they obviously have no sense of gratitude as well as being ugly.
The bane of my exsistance this summer, my first working as a "paid" gardener, were fire ants so I learned how to get rid of those little nasties asap, expensive but worth it, Martha

With all of the tiny frogs in my lawn last summer, I hope that my slug problem will end! I too am reluctant to bait them. I also found a few toads, too, so will leave some broken pot bits around to make homes for them.

Nancy.

>>>Hornworms are really cool. Especially if you raise one. They turn into beautiful moths which are important to the garden, they pollinate flowers at night. Here's one I raised. It's a humming bird moth>>>>

They really are neat fluttering about at night (we have hummingbirds in the daytime, as well) but the hornworms can decimate a tomato plant in no time flat!

So, I kill the ones on the tomatoes...elsewhere, I try and turn a blind eye.