good job, it's been revived after a 2yr hiatus on the lipstick plant. mine's been suffering v badly this winter where it's leaves dropped off almost daily. it's sited next to a west-facing venetian-slatted window (that means in winter, it's fairly dim). i haven't sprayed it before, but last winter, it seemed pretty healthy. i'm not quite sure how it's got to this stage where my treatment of it has been the same. in the growing season, it's been fed weekly (i think) and watered regularly. this winter all my plants have been watered at least once a week, and they haven't been in any unnecessary heat (i didn't put my heating on this winter). do you think it was the lack of heat that's causing the leaf-drop? i'd say, the house got as cold as 5 deg. celsius (tho' that's a major estimate!) and the outdoors minus 10 deg. celsius. it's currently sitting upstairs in my east-facing bedroom, where there is more light and a tad warmer than the downstairs room. it's also had a major trim of all the dead bare stems and the unhealthy leaves taken off. anyone to help?

Aloha Kekoa, We usually start planting our gardens around now and continue for the next several months. The rains will be starting and the days will be cooler so the plants can get a good start. Other than by seed, I've had good grass starts from getting varieties of grasses growing nearby and transplanting them. There are a whole lot of different types of grasses out there, more than just the types they sell seeds for. If your neighbors have some nice grasses growing up around some of their shrubs, you could offer to "weed" around the shrubs if you could keep the grass starts. A hui hou, Cathy

Hi - I'm w/ w b ... although BB seems sturdier than the original ES & even Forever & Ever, under your full/sun the blossoms will, likely scorch. I only have one (planted in '07) in my assorted collection of Hs, is a great performer & she is only under f/s for a few hrs, she wimps out a bit tho picks herself back up & dusts herself after she gets shaded & looks great w/ only a few florets scorched! Perhaps more experienced gardeners who've planted BB 'en masse' can comment on protective benefit of growing as a group or a hedge in f/s. Best of luck!!! Â;) BB is a beautiful/reliable shrub!

No you aren't crazy and if you are, you're in good company. But you'd be better off buying in the spring unless you're getting a price you can't ignore. Annabelles on your porch would be close to dried up in NYC in their normal life cycle....so beautiful white blooms on the plant would be in some other altered timezone kinda thing. If you want one for your porch, get it in the spring. If you can't live without it...go for it. They're very hardy. But if you're "ordering" it, wait for spring. So hard! to wait. I bought some hydrangeas out of season and rue the day, bigtime. Good Luck!