I have perennials to trade with you, including lily of the valley, penstemon "Husker Red", Feverfew herb, Creeping Thyme, & purple bee balm (bergamot). This would be my first trade. Would love to try louisiana irises! Let me know!

Hi Diane: That photo was taken in cool and wet weather. In hot summer, it's more pink. I'm after Annie L. McDowell's lavender/lilac scent. In my garden Annie leads the Hall of Scent Fame, beating 15 Austins, Comte de Chambord, Paul Neyron, Jacques Cartier, Firefighter, Nahema, Sonia Rykiel, Frederic Mistral ... I have 30+ top-notched scented roses. Last night I sniffed lavender essence oil from a bottle (NOW brand), and had the best sleep. Annie smells heavenly like lavender and lilac. There are many studies that back up the relaxing benefits of lavender scent. Here's an excerpt from the link below: "When brain waves were monitored in a lab in a 31-person sleep study in 2005 at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Conn., whiffs of lavender in vials changed the quality of sleep compared to controls... When people sniffed the lavender before bedtime, it increased their amount of deep sleep, or slow-wave sleep, says researcher Namni Goel, now at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine in Philadelphia. Subjects who breathed the lavender, administered intermittently for a total of eight minutes at bedtime, reported feeling more vigorous in the morning ..." Here is a link that might be useful: The Wall Street Journal on

You might want to look into Baby's Breathe, Lavender or Thyme for your area. Snakes will be in any groundcover but maybe Thyme's aroma might keep them at bay. Here is a link that might be useful: Propagating Perennials

Hi folks; I've been so busy and stressed. I'm sorry I couldn't make the proper teatime. I'm Happy - I'll take those pesky green beans off your hands, LOL. That is my favorite food ever. When Mom was pregnant with me she could not get enough green beans; she craved them constantly. The first solid food she fed me was green bean baby food. She said I went wild for it. To this day I devour green beans that are prepared any way at all - from raw to gourmet; I will eat all I can hold, but I cannot eat all I want - there's simply not enough room even in my Rubenesque middle! I love that barn. Oh the things Wes and I could and would store in there! Murray's Mom - if you want a break from the heat, drop in here. It was 58 when I got up and then dropped to 56. Cloudy, rainy, windy. Great weather for breathing! Lavender Lass - I have five Wave petunias, eight impatiens, three geraniums, another thumbergia vine, and two Diamond Frost euphorbias still waiting to get in the ground. It's just too swampy out there. The are in larger pots and seem to be holding their own on the potting bench, but still... I signed up for your blog! Shades - I love that crocheted rug. Do you care to share the instructions and how you made the "thread?" I can see you translating those wonderful elephants into stained glass! What a beautiful buck! Eld6161 - I'd love to go to a French restaurant! The closest I've come was having a French/Vietnamese room mate while I was stationed in Spain. She was in the U.S. Air Force, too, and was a meteorologist. (I was in Public Affairs). That poor gal could not even boil water, but she loved my cooking. We were the best room mates ever; of course we worked different shifts, had different days off, went out with totally different "types" of men, and hardly ever saw one another. I'd leave cooked meals with re-heating instructions in the fridge. She always did my laundry, and ironed my uniforms (!) when she did hers, so it was all good. We shared a 4-bedroom high-rise apartment in Zaragoza. It was a wonderful life. The dollar was very strong in Spain at the time. We paid a pittance for our apartment, which had marble floors! Of course, marble was a "common" flooring material there, wood would have been expensive. But still, I had marble floors, marble baseboards, a fully-tiled, as in wall-to-wall and floor-to-ceiling, bathroom and kitchen. It was a hoot. Later on she married a cardiologist. The first thing he did for her was to send her to a culinary school. She and I still laugh about that. Wordie89 - I love to be read to! What a joy you must be to your hubby. From last Thursday until Tuesday we received 5 and 3/10s inches of rain. I emptied the guage yesterday and now have over a half-inch again.