WOW, I"m impressed just with the fact that you typed all that!!! not to mention that it's a very nice offer, I know there will be many who will really appreciate that. America is surely a better place with folks like you in it :)

I'm glad to read all these reports; they're interesting! Thanks to everyone who's written in. Rosemeadowgardener: I don't recognize any of the weeds you list; are they Australian natives, or exotic: do you know their botanical names? Thank God we don't have one of the worst curses of North America here: no poison ivy, oak, sumac. How interesting to read Marianne's weed list from the other end of the European temperate zone and discover that I have all the nasty weeds she does, and several of the nice ones. Galium aperine is an unpleasant plant, sticky and climbing, but there are a number of other Galium species that grow locally that are rather nice. Sweet woodruff is Galium odoratum. Our native primrose is Primula vulgaris; and we too have anemones, hepaticas, wild geraniums--harebells I think not. Connie speaks of the huge weed population of her property, which is an old farm. We too garden on a former farm and downhill from a current one, and I agree with what her post suggests, that agricultural properties present particular weed problems. Ongoing plowing leaves ground permanently disturbed, given weeds fertile ground to grow; grazing animals can trample ground, and the hay brought in to feed them can bring weed seeds from other areas. The year after the shade garden was flooded with manure from a cattle enclosure above, the weed population there was amazing. And we get great numbers of weeds, some of them highly obnoxious, along the drainage ditches that descend from our neighbors' plowed fields through our own land. Then, if fields and pastures are abandoned, they begin to go to brush, and you get brambles and other colonizing species--Connie's plant list is different from mine, but the process is the same. What the heck is Creeping Charlie? A couple of you have mentioned it. The various posts have covered quite a bit of territory, not only in the literal sense, on the topic of weeds. Paula took up the issue of invasive exotics that push out native species on undomesticated land (as well as the native but obnoxious Poison Oak). This is a problem all over the world, of course. I read in that interesting book 'Ecological Imperialism' about how many plants flourished in Europe along with the development of agriculture and became weeds, then traveled all over the world with European colonizers and established themselves in temperate zones everywhere, often at considerable cost to native species. We too have our exotic invasive species--one standout here in the hills is black locust, Robinia pseudoacacia, originally from North America--but I wonder what the effect has been on our native flora of a few thousand years of tolerably intensive agriculture. Were there species that went extinct because they were useless to humans and occupied land that could be used for farming and other useful activities? Some plant populations exist in part as a result of human activities: we have a rich population of native orchids many of which grow in pasture land and are now threatened because grazing is disappearing and the land is turning to brushland and then to woods. But perhaps three thousand years ago the orchids that grew were those adapted to woodlands? Lavender lass: do you know the species name of your artemisia? We have one ugly native artemisia, A. vulgaris, but a couple of nice ones. Another pleasant weed I remembered is lemon balm, Melissa officinalis--what a fine plant to share a name with. It's too invasive to plant, but grows wild at the edges of beds, is fragrant, and has fresh green leaves that are pretty in spring. I feel better every time I see it. I like mulleins too. We have a woolly species similar to what erasmus describes which makes a fine ornamental; the problem is that it seems to need a somewhat lighter soil than is present in most of our garden; otherwise it's not fussy. Melissa

bump on an old thread! i just canned a great experimental batch today: a "low sugar" strawberry jam with balsamic vinegar, black pepper, and cardamom. the cardamom was a variation on the wider-used balsamic/pepper recipe. I basically made the recipe on the package of the Sure Jell Low Sugar pectin box, but with the following variations: *mixed the fruit and sugar (half white/half brown) and let it macerate overnight *strained and brought the syrup to a boil, then let the fruit sit in the boiled syrup most of the day *then proceeded with the process on the Sure Jell box: added pectin, brought to full rolling boil for 1 min *I added 4 tbs balsamic vinegar, about 1/2 tsp fresh ground pepper, and 2 tbs cardamom to the mixture while it boiled then canned in a water bath like normal. turned out super tasty!

So far I’ve received 3 of the own root climbers for this project: White Dawn, Amadeus, and Cl Crimson Glory. Sally Holmes, Don Juan, and Red Fountain are all grafted bare roots on Dr. Huey. White Dawn: loaded with buds but seems very weak stemmed and kind of spindly. Amadeus: Fragile looking but came with a bloom that was the most amazing color. Someone on here described it as red porcelain and that’s exactly what it looked like. Perfect, true red, but soft colored. I’m hoping this one goes gangbusters. Cl Crimson Glory: This one is going to serve my intents the best, I can already tell. It has a really thick main cane that doesn’t look like it will ever need support. It also had a bloom on arrival and it was a perfect dark red. Large, too.