A Plague of Mealybugs

I've been spending the last several weeks trying to get the outdoors buttoned up before the winter shuts us down for the next four months, and as a consequence the conservatory has been sadly neglected. Just how neglected was driven home to me this morning. We had an overnight low of 24, with a heavy frost that more resembled a light snowfall and didn't disappear until nearly noon! My feeling is that if it's too cold for the frost to melt, then it's too cold for me to be out there. So I puttered in the conservatory instead. I had a flower arrangement to do for our library's monthly fundraiser, and once that was completed, I decided to take the rubbing alcohol to a couple of plants that I spotted mealybug on. WELL.......there were a great many mealybugs on several plants. The upshot was that I spent an hour and a half swabbing down 5 Christmas cacti and 3 clivias - and tossing out the large, venerable jade plant that had been given to me by a now-deceased dear friend. That really hurt (I did locate a half dozen branches that were clean to make cuttings from), but there was just nothing else for it. It was absolutely polluted with the little bastards, and after looking at it, I'm convinced that it was the source of all the problems. Time will no doubt tell on that score, but it has to help. While I labored away, I began to wonder what it would be like to encounter a mealybug the size of a vole. Natural history is reticent on this point, and for good reason. I guess the moral of the story is, as Roseanne Roseannadanna (Gilda Radner on Saturday Night Live) used to say: "It's always somethin'".............