Would love to trade for butterfly bush or two toned iris. I have Aloe plants, Burnt orange/gold Iris, and lilies. Also many varieties of hosta. Will send pics if you are interested. Jillian

Sandy, A while back the Village Ijots that bought out the Garden Web website were linking advertisements to 'hot words' via intellitxt. So if you used words like "lawn" or "hummingbird" or "seeds" etc in your post it would show up as underlined and if you hovered over it you could see it was a link to another website trying to sell something related to lawns or hummingbirds or whatever. Lots of folks were quite upset and left the forum...others had to download programs to stop it and others like me quit becoming paid subscribers and started to type in blank html codes so the advertisements wouldn't be linked to what we typed. I guess the powers that be realized they were losing members and stopped inserting intellitxt advertising in our posts. ~ Cat

It will continue to bloom, but after it has enough uncut blooms on it that are going to seed, the blooms will become fewer and fewer. In the past I stood on my lawn chair or a ladder to deadhead the spent blooms on my tall butterfly bushes, but that got real old, so I've planted bushes that are supposed to be more moderate in size, like 'Ellen's Blue', 'Attraction', and 'Black Knight' - I've pruned my 'White Profusion' severely for the past two years, and it only grew to be about 6' tall instead of the 9' it used to grow, which makes it much easier to keep deadheaded. I also pruned my 'Black Knight' severely, because it has such a scraggly growth pattern - it only grew to about 6' tall last year without severe pruning. I don't know if 'Ellen's Blue' and 'Attraction' will really be moderately sized bushes as advertised, but if they're not, I can just prune them - 9' tall butterfly bushes just aren't practical. It won't hurt your BB to prune it, it'll revitalize it. MissSherry

Sorry it took me so long to post pics! Some of these aren't that great, because I was taking them before the sun was on the plants. The flash doesn't really show the true coloring. This is an Echinopsis given to me by DH's grandma. This is a bloom stem....not porn. LOL It just keeps growing, and I can't wait to see the bloom on it! This is some yarrow I grew from seed, in front of feverfew, as well as another batch of yarrow in the back left. I'm rather disappointed in the color of the yarrow blooms, as I was hoping to get some with other pastel shades to bring some excitement to this area. Ah, well, what can you do? :) I guess some of the seedlings I gave Mom have some color, so all is not lost! My Veronica spicata getting ready to bloom. This is only half the plant; the wind put the other half off to the right. :D One of my favorite Salvias to date, a patens I got during my last shopping spree! The blooms on this baby are over an inch long! And the blue color is a LOT deeper in person, without flash from a camera to wash it out. Tiny blooms from my S. viscosa. They're small, but they're so pretty up close - with dark blotching on the bottom lips - and the bloom stems are pretty tall. My little, newly purchased 'Blue Hawaii' Colocasia (taro) sent out this big leaf during the last heat spell. It's patiently waiting for more heat before sending out more. :) My Sedum gathering, with assorted succulents, oregano, mint...basically, attention deficit stuff. LOL And FINALLY (sorry for all the pics!!), my blue dawn flower finds me worthy of blooms this year. Just starting out, but I hope she cranks out more of them the warmer it gets. Thanks for looking! Brenda