Thank you all for your posts! I was so excited to see them. Thanks for a warm welcome. Yes, I'm insaine. Today was our recycling day. Driving to work, I spotted a nice milk jag. I almost jump off the car.... Lasagna beds - I was familiar with the idea but I was under impression that it has to be started in the fall for the soil to "get ready". It looks like I can do it in the spring, thanks. Aliska - it's funny, looks like we have something in common. My third and forth languages are French and Russian. At least used to be, by now I hardly remember anything. My children were born in the Middle East and my husband does speak with British accent (he is a Brit) and he does cook. No Chineese connections though. BTW, thanks for "sound youngish"... Looking forwards for the Chicago swap! Hope, I'll have something swapable. My family is used to my madness. Whatever works to keep me happy, they are happy. Can not wait till weekend for more sowing. One more thing, I have to admitt; I've sowed a couple of Jiffy's trays for indoor sowing, just for comparrison. Most probably, whatever will sprout will die. I have a couple of week long trips in the spring and my lovely DH will not take care of them. Well, even he is not perfect...

Pam, they might be in a "resting" mode, getting ready to bloom again. Many flowers do that. I wouldn't hold off watering them though. I pinch out the spent bloom from time to time and water mine every other day. They have been non-stop blooming, but the plants are not nearly as big as yours. Here is a pic of mine taken June 20th: Did you put any potting soil mixture in there that contains fertilizer? Most fertilizers and soil mixes with fertilizer are for growing healthy green leaves, unless they specify for producing flowers. MiracleGrow, for instance, is a great leaf making fertilizer, but it does little for making flowers. It is good for giving plants a mid-season shot in the arm, so to speak, when the weather is hot, or if I see leaves on my roses turning yellow and the plants defoliating. It helps them to recover, but you MUST continue to water, not matter what. If there is fertilizer in your soil mix, you MUST water or it will burn up your soil and your plants. I'm being redundant here to emphasize my point. ;) I don't feed my flowers anything but compost. I add a LITTLE composted manure around my roses in the fall every year or two, and side-dress them with my homemade compost when I have enough made, usually in midsummer when they need a boost, but that is it. The nearby flowers benefit from the side-dressings I give my roses, but I do not give the other plants anything but good old H2O. I have to water every day here. Your yellow Cosmos seems to be a different variety than mine. Mine came in a Meadow-in-a-can mix, so I have no idea what variety it is. It is light and airy and I like that. I can save you some seeds if you want some for next year. You'll never need to plant them again, and they transplant easily too, so you can spread them around. (Yah, I really like the Sensation variety too - pinks, reds and whites). I definitely would WATER yours from time to time and then hide and watch. They will soon start blooming for you again. Those are tough little plants. ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ So...where have you been young lady? Eh? I was beginning to think you gone to the barn and the cows ate you! (old California pioneers joke) :) Your big sister, ~Annie

You have a very special cosmos plant that will reward you with 100's of flowers in September. I always pulled them out, thinking they were overgrown, flowerless monsters, but one year I let them grow and was amazed at what those plants produced. So stake them up as best as you can and just wait for the glorious show. As for the sedums, put a peony ring around them in early spring, before the stems grow up through them. You will have a lovely plant. Enjoy!

I do love Chesterton, always have. Read half of it with my morning cup of coffee and printed it to read the rest later. Don, thank you for a read to keep.