Storm passed us completely by, though there were some beautiful thunderheads to the east. Not even a drop. Yay! I'm on the other side of the same coin, NJ. I can't conceive of it *not* raining in the summer. I frequently read in gardening books and even on GW here about not getting the leaves of certain plants wet. I've scratched my head for years. Doesn't rain get them wet all the time? We just got back from a road trip to Victoria, BC a few days ago. It doesn't really rain in the summer there either. It was extremely strange to see brown grass (where it wasn't irrigated) and occasional falling leaves and I was told this was normal in the summer. That just doesn't happen here except in drought years. We saw farms all over BC baling beautiful hay. They could cut and bale at the optimum nutrition level because they totally controlled the irrigation. Time to cut? Just stop watering. Take as much time as necessary to dry in the swath; heck, take a couple extra days to flip the swath and dry it through. It's amazing. We just can't do that here most years. Usually, when it looks like there's going to be a rash of a few days with no rain, farmers are dropping everything - even 9 to 5 jobs in town - to 'make hay while the sun shines'. Even then, it's unusual to get hay off with no rain at all on it. Most of the prairies here support "dry-land" farms with no irrigation setup at all. In an average year here, I only usually need to water the garden at the beginning, when seeds are close to the surface and yet to germinate. After they've established, I rarely need to pull out the sprinkler. There's at least an inch of rain per week or so and when there's not, the roots dig deep enough that they're good for a few more days until it rains again. This is only my second year doing dry bush beans, but I'm finding it difficult to mature them on the plant because of the short season and because the rain still comes in the fall, though less. Same for the pole beans, though, they're up in the air and do dry off a little faster. No rain in the winter - just snow, cold and more cold. We can go into the -30s Celcius for a couple of weeks at a time and -40 and below is not unheard of. I don't get to do cover crops. Typically, last frost is within the first week of June (or late May in a good year) and first frost is usually early to mid September (but can come as early as August in a bad year). We can extend harvest into early October by covering on nights where there's frost forecast. Crops mature, but don't really grow much by then. I've tried mulches a few times, but have discarded the idea. I know it's a great thing for many gardeners, but I find it cools the soil too much and there's not really a need to conserve moisture. Should we go back to drought years, I'd see about trying it again. Right now, though, I need heat heat heat to reach my soil. :)

In our modern world, you can't just post a picture, esp. if you are business trying to sell something. You have to have the rights to that picture, or at least to own it. And a better picture is always available. And if you have a picture of the form of a tree, someone wants a picture of the leaves...in summer as well as fall...and the bark...and the fruit...and the flower... To further illustrate our examples, let s take the initial example offered, Acer palmatum. I can take two pictures in silhouette, one of a weeping, probably lace-leaf variety, and one of an upright ascending, probably full-leaf variety, and say I have pictures of the form of most of the varieties you're gonna be looking at. The differences are not so much in the shape and structure of the plant as they are in the detail...shades of color, amount and degree of variegation, how finely toothed are the incisions of the leaf. I have two books on Japanese maples. Yes, there are quite a few pictures of entire plants, but there are far more pictures of close-ups. If an author of a book specializing in one particular, rather narrowly focused group of plants finds it unnecessary to provide all pictures of all characteristics of a certain cultivar... Oops, I forgot something...you don't want the book. You'd have to pay for it. You want the seller to provide it for you, for free, of course. I mean, doesn't Wal-Mart provide incredible customer service as well as that low price?

That's why I always want spring to come each year so badly, as soon as everything greens up the garden turns unbelievably lovely. Plus you know how it is in spring, there is always something going on in the garden. Nancy, thank you for the ID on my double daff. I am going to leave it be, even though I remember it flopping on the ground last year also, because I think it is very pretty. I still can't believe I bought those uglies. Daffs are usually so pretty LOL! I think this will be a good year for lilies here as they are coming up all over the place with nice strong growth. I put about 12 groupings of extra fancy lilies in last spring and they should look really good this year. You know they take that first year to settle in. Plus afew more just singles or doubles of some more lillies. I do love lillies. I used to have a big stand of the Oriental lillies out front that these new ones are replacements for. Only the old stand was much larger than what I put in now. It will have to do this way I think as I don't feel it would look good if I extended the lily area over more. I have Tiger lilies too, old ones been here since I was a child. Were here when my parents bought the house.

Be sure to read reviews before purchasing, and try to get an infra-red. The Non-typical Cuddeback Capture worked great for awhile, but eventually the local critters grew tired of going blind from the flash and began avoiding the area. I moved the camera and caught some of my former victims by surprise the first night but they wised up even further and with this latest camera relocation; I've had zip. As for that suspected jaguar thing, I just don't know what to think. I keep finding scratched up places on the ground-just out of camera range. I had read that researchers in Mexico use skunk glands and Calvin Klein's Obsession to lure suspicious jaguars close enough to their hidden cameras for photos. So, I bought some Obsession and sprayed it on the ground in front of the camera two days ago. Today, near my camera, but off to the side, I found another scrape and there was that same skunky, rank, salty smell I'd smelled before near the scratch marks by the pond several days ago. No photo of course. The other animals stayed away as well, I noticed. There's probably a twitter about me out there: "Danger: bright flash. Avoid plastic boxes" 3-9-09, Picazo Farm logging road, possible ground scrape From 2-24-09, Tracks and scat Unless I actually get a photo I can't say for sure what's leaving the tracks and scrapes. I sent some of the track photos to several big cat "experts" but only two answered, giving vague, non-commital answers that seemed to indicate they were as mystified as I was.