So far, great idea's! I noticed that when mine are in the hot sun, the black plastic potted ones do get very hot with the sun hitting them, and after a period of time, my plants start to suffer..They turn a light green almost yellow, and seem to stop growing or feeding...So I have blocked the sun from hitting these by letting the grass grow tall in front of them, blocking the sun from hitting the pots. I also wrap any material of lighter color around the pots such as aluminum foil, white sheets, white plastic bags, wet towels, which dramaticaly helps lower the soil temps.. The ones growing in any other color pot but black, seem to do very well, even in full sun on the hottest of days. I too water mine everyday before leaving for work, since the soilless mix I use is free draining..Sometimes I water throughout the day as this cools the pots down and it seems that the damp soilless mix stays a bit cooler longer.. The ones I have in the gritty mix are never a problem. I water everyday. If I do not plan on watering for some reason, then I just remove the smaller pots from the sun, till I can, or since I have most my plants growing in clay containers, I wrap wet towels around them which can keep them moist for days....I acyually wrap wet towels around all the clay containers indoors if I plan on taking a few days vacation..This has worked wonders..Why not outdoors which I discovered last summer? :-) Mike..:-)

Yes, I actually do have a plan and while I am not there yet (are we ever done with a garden?) I feel like I am doing well in terms of continual waves of bloom. I have a few spring flowering bulbs here to start things off. I plan to put in lots more this fall. Going for crocus, Daffs and tulips. Then I have many spring flowering trees and shrubs such as serviceberries, crab apples, cherries and many types of viburnums. That takes me into Azealea flowering season and very shortly after the azealeas finish, the roses start their spring flush. Next come lily bulbs as the asiatic lilies start soon after the spring rose flush. Then the oriental lily bulbs. This year I added even more lily bulbs than last years 400 bulbs of all oriental and asiatic. This year lots of trumpets, orienpets and OT and LA hybrid lilies. All new to me as I used to have only asiatic and oriental. But I added some of those also. This takes me into daylily blooming time and some of the lilies and daylilies will be blooming at the same time. This brings me into August and I don't know how much bloom for august as I have added many late flowering daylilies last fallm should bloom late July and early august. There should be some late flowering lily bulbs also. For fall, well nothing unless daylilies rebloom. I have also been working on more bloom before the start of the daylilies and lily bulbs by planting lots of Siberian Iris, which blooms now here and am working to make a tall bearded iris bed for the TB iris I ordered comeing this july. Of course there are many other plants in the yard blooming at various times. I like Hollyhocks, Purple coneflowers, Butterfly bushes, Sunflowers, Mexican Sunflower, Catmint, Hummingbird mints, various milkweeds and lots of annuals such as marigolds, zinnias, cosmos, varius annual salvias, Snapdragons, impatients and more. Usually looks pretty good here.

I had a problem with a cat using the corner of the living room for a litter box. After replacing the carpet and installing hardwood, I thought the problem was solved. But no. I heard some scratching noise on the hardwood and went to investigate and found a rather unpleasant pile. What I found to solve the problem is called SSSCat. It is about the size of a hairspray can and the top contains a motion sensor. When the cat walks by it blasts a spray of air. I put one in each of the 2 corners the offenses were occurring. One blast was all it took. That cat will not set foot in the room again. you can use it on counters, furniture, rooms you want to keep the cat out of. I wish I knew about this when I still had some nice Christmas ornaments :( Here is the product description: Product Description Scat the gentle way to protect off-limit areas. Stop cats from roaming freely throughout the house. This unique spray deterrent system uses an adjustable motion sensor to detect a cat's movement within three feet of a designated area. Once the cat has been identified, the system is capable of delivering either an audible warning or combining tone and a burst of compressed air. Package includes motion sensor device, adjustable spray nozzle, compressed air spray and instruction guide. You can buy it online at Petco or Amazon. I wish I had known about this years ago !!!!!

Ok, dear people. I totally understand phobias, having suffered for all of my younger years with arachnophobia and acrophobia. Thanks to my mother. Phobias are IRRATIONAL fears that can become debilitating, as some of you have expressed. My acrophobia had risen to a serious level while I was at college, making it stressful for me to walk up all of the stairs required to navigate some of those big, old buildings on campus. And the little house I was renting didn't have railings on the stairs to the basement! Believe me, I felt like a wreck most of the time because of this stupid fear. So I visited the student health department at the university to see if there might not be someone on staff that could help me. Lo and behold, one of the of the psychologists specialized in different techniques to treat people like me. He taught me self-hypnosis methods and visualization, which I still use today. He also practiced some de-sensitization techniques on me which were very interesting. In the beginning, I couldn't even close my eyes and PICTURE me walking over a narrow pathway without railings. I mean, just sitting there in his office, I would begin to panic. In about 6 visits, I felt reborn. Reborn. And much of the work was done on my own, by practicing some simple exercises. With what I learned with the de-sensitization methods, I was able to overcome on my own (for the most part) my terrible arachnophobia....and a good thing, since I soon moved to semi-tropical SC, where the spiders seemed to come only in XX and XXX sizes, lol. So, what I'm saying is: you don't need to let your life be encumbered by an irrational fear. They can be 'cured' in an incredibly short time.