That makes me feel somewhat better. I had fears about planting so late in such hot weather but my excitement got the better of me and I just couldn't wait until the fall to purchase and plant. The rose is nice and cool on my covered patio area and I have watered it well this morning. Hopefully I can keep it alive for the rest of the growing season. Thanks for the reply!

I would recommend musa basjoo that you can leave outside during winter. If you don't protect it, it will regrow from the roots, since they are very cold hardy. However, if you want to have more beautiful and taller specimens, you have to protect them from the cold. Another quite interesting and nice looking one is musa velutina that quite cold hardy as well. Personnaly I have never left it outside during winter. What is particularly nice with this one is that it can flower in one growing season, even in cold climates. Mine flowered indoors in October! If you want to bring them back indoors, your choice is bigger. Good luck with banana growing, Nicolas, Switzerland

I've often thought that if I had a gigantic mixer and could blend together the rich loam from the woodland with the red clay and the scattered sandy patches, we'd have perfect soil. Sadly it doesn't work that way. At least you still have the rosemary and chives. Considering how brutal the heat and drought have been for the last two years, it is not surprising you lost the other herbs. I feel like gardening here is always one step forward, two steps back....and I blame the constant "two steps back" on the recurring droughts we have had in the 2000s. Hi Loretta! I'm afraid we are learning far too much from the school of hard knocks about drought gardening. I'd like to say that this year will be better than the last two, but I don't really believe that is true. I have been working on enlarging the garden area, though not specifically enlarging the big garden, but rather developing a couple of new spots---one with wicked clay and one that is about 75% sandy-silty soil that drains too fast and the rest a clayey-sandy blend. It isn't that I think we'll have enough rain for me to keep all three areas going all summer, but rather that I want to plant as much as possible as early as possible to get the best harvest before our typical summer heat sets in. Normally I'd say "before our typical heat and drought sets it", but the drought is still here. I am not sure if I've ever tried to plant a spring garden when we are in the midst of Extreme or Exceptional Drought. I think we were in Severe Drought in the spring of 2003 when I planted, and I learned a lesson that year---not to keep waiting for the spring rains to come. Instead of watering a lot to get the young vegetable, herb and flower plantings off to a good start, I kept waiting and waiting and waitng for the rain that never came. My plants were stunted and it was a pretty rough year in the garden overall. I learned well from that experience and will water as much as I need to in order to get the garden up and running and producing long before summer arrives. The sandy soil in my new garden is so sandy it scares me. I have visions of root knot nematodes dancing in my head. I have a ton of amending to do before I can plant into that ground. Still, I was excited to find the sandy soil there. Sandy soil is a whole lot easier to double-dig and amend than our dense red clay. Dawn

Hello Beerhog! That peony is a beauty. Is it fragrant? I like the more simple blooms on the peonies and just have one, Krinkled White. It is not a tree peony however and has no fragrance. I think the white bleeding heart is prettier than the red one...which is what I have. I may just have to get a white!You got a great picture of the white blooms. Mine always seem to blur a little. Your yard is sure looking pretty and springlike.