From SEED??? Well, no. R. chinensis isn't Mutabilis. R. chinensis (spontanea) would be the original species rose that was the progenitor of all of todays China Roses. And it's no Miniature. Do they say anything about the provenance of these seeds? Where they were collected? R. chinensis isn't growing on every streetcorner. Here is R. chinensis var. spontanea, photographed last May in NoCalif., at Quarryhill Botanical Gardens. ALAS! Not in bloom at the time. But the little red arrows delineate the plant (which is fairly large). I am told that the blooms are single, and red (which isn't any big surprise). Jeri

"My neighbors idea of gardening is going to Target while the landscaping guys come to cut the grass." --LOL, Doris! This is my first year WSing. And really, it makes a lot of sense when you think about it. Most seed winters over and then you get "volunteer plants". Every year, I have "volunteers" -- hollyhock, sunflower, cherry tomato, marigold, basil, and even last summer, I got about ten very nice cantaloupe from vines that came up out of composted soil that I had just moved into a new raised bed. I didn't even have much for it to grow in yet at that spot, and at first I thought the plant was cucumber so I trained it onto a trellis. Imagine how well it would've grown with better conditions! Thanks to several generous folks, I have WS'd a lot of really interesting-sounding plants that I never tried before. I do not have good luck with seeds I plant in the ground in spring. Some of them never come up. They dry out just at the wrong time. Or the cat digs them up. Or the dog walks on them. Or the birds eat the seed! And worse yet, I've even been known to forget what I planted where and have PULLED THEM UP thinking they're weeds! Whoever coined the term "Golden Years" must not have been old. When you think about it, it's just really nature's way, what we're doing, except that we are protecting the seed from drying out and from all the other things that happen to it. The "volunteer" plants seem to "know" when it's time to come up. So this is going to be really interesting to me to see how the milk bottle makes the difference. With my milk bottles clearly marked (with grease pencil), that alone will keep me from destroying seedlings thinking they're weeds! I live on the back of a small town park. People use the sidewalk that runs about ten feet from my back chain link and I see them sometimes just standing there looking over my garden in the summer. If I'm out there they always make comments and ask questions. I always grow tomatoes in my raised beds and people around here seem to be really interested in tomatoes. Those who don't have space for anything else, will grow that. I plant mammoth sunflowers and hollyhock just outside my fence, they get a lot of attention; so much so that somebody actually cut off one of the sunflower heads last year and made off with it. And they love to look over the grapevines just inside my fence that grow on an "arbor" DH made me out of iron pipe, pipe elbows and stock panels. Those same people walk the park all year 'round and now they've started to ask questions about what all those milk jugs are in the corner of one of my raised beds. I mean, these folks truly get involved in my garden. In the hottest part of the summer, when I'm not very good about getting out there and pulling weeds, they let me know about that, too! So thanks everybody for taking the time to post advice and especially to those who've sent seed to me, and in fact sent seed to the person who sent seed. I got really excited about some of the seed I got after I Googled and saw what some of the plants look like! I keep a "gardening journal" on my computer and I like to copy the pictures of what the things I plant are supposed to look like from the Internet, along with any other information I can get: height, growing conditions,culinary or medicinal uses, etc., and paste them into my journal. So I was really busy doing that for awhile. I still have planted my tomatoes and peppers inside this year. I know the tomatoes would probably be fine WSing but I'm not sure about the peppers. They seem to need to be warm all the time and I've been told that if their roots get cold it affects production for the life of the plant. DH is a tomato lover and I like to can whatever excess I have so having good tomato plants is important. If things do as well as I think they will this spring, I will WS tomato seed next year. I too am having trouble collecting enough milk jugs, but I will save all year now and be better prepared next year. I just can't take things out of people's trash. I work for an agency that provides jobs to people with disabilities, and one of the businesses we run is a recycling center. But taking things out of the bins is a big no-no for us. The mess in the parking lot people make when digging around in our bins means we have to spend a lot of time cleaning up after them. Things blow across into other people's property and they have the police come out and tell us to clean up. If we don't do it fast enough we are fined. When there are lots of people taking recycling materials, it really reduces the amount of stuff we ship out and affects our income. So if you live near a recycling center, please ask them first if it's OK for you to take things. They might have things they can't recycle and have to throw away that you can have all you want of. In our case, that would be anything made of styrofoam. And any time any of you dumpster dive, please clean up after yourself. Don't climb in. There are sharp metal objects, broken glass, and sometimes even 'poo' in there. Although the mess that's made is always a problem, what most businesses fear about dumpster divers is that they will get hurt and sue.

When I started wintersowing last year, I confiscated the colored electrical tape my son had bought in the $1 bins at Target. It was a six pack with black, green, blue, red, yellow, and white. I did let him keep the black though : ) This year, when it came time to start wintersowing, DH found the same six pack at Lowe's, but it was about $5. Not near as good of a deal, but the electrical tape works great on the bottom of my wintersowing containers, for writing (with a black Sharpie) what is sown in each one. Some folks on the WS forum have said theirs have faded, but I'm wondering if they are putting it on the side of the container, since it wouldn't get any sun exposure on the bottom. It does mean you have to lift each container up when checking on your sprouts though, until they get big enough to recognize the leaf shape at a glance. This is my first year to have bulbs mixed in with my perennials, so I guess I better think about marking mine too, since I am prone to moving things around. Thanks for all the great ideas everyone! Bonnie

Thanks for the replies. The garden will get afternoon sun. The maple and the ornamental grass will get most to the first sun. If I stand on the 10 by 15 foot patio the maple and grass are South-east. to my right is open 15 foot facing south southwest. This is where I want to put a wall of containers (they sell this in the Target store) to create a more shady private patio area. I want to use at least two 3 tier shelves for containers to partly enclose the patio. To my left is the house and to my back is the deck. I am looking at posts and checking the images like Heurchera. I am retired so I can water everything every day. These forums are great. I found a great article on potting and repotting needs of maples and Al's general theory of water control in containers. I love to learn these details. This will be a small space when I add a water feature, two chairs a foot rest and maybe one of those chiminy Chimera? to extend my season for sitting out. The bees make me and my wife nervous. On reflection, I have never been stung by a bee that I didn't step on so I am softening on this topic. If you slow when you make them nervous - buzzy they just settle down and go back to bee business. We may be confusing them with yellow jackets and wasps. There number will not be affected by the preence of flowers. I guess I can not resist some Canna that I like. I will try for a smaller variery. We used to have a lot of impatiens and boginias so they will fit for the border and some containers. I also want to try several coleus. They are so colorful. Thanks for the reminder about pampus grass. I had it by the pond where I used to live and had a lot of room. I will try to find another fountain grass that will grow to four or five foot that I can get cozier with. I want bigger ground cover for a border 18 inches wide so this can be Hostas. The Lamium looks good for this too. I am finding plant search engines. Thanks to all of you this forum is great. Jim S in NJ