Reading this thread makes me all the more upset with our puppy who pulled out two of our three watermelon vines (among many other garden growth). Each vine she pulled out at the end of June had two or three softball sized watermelons!! ediej1209, we have one vine left with one melon similar in size to yours chugging away. Reading this I'm feeling lucky to have that at least! None of the books I've ever read has listed puppies as a garden pest but she's the worst we've encountered yet! :)

What I do is.... I make up a mixture of garden soil/old manure/peat moss and have it in a wheelbarrow ready to go all the time. When receiving a hosta/daylily/other perennial I immediately pot them up with the mix. I repot all perennials bought at nurseries in order to get them out of the 'junk' that they are growing in...that soilless stuff that doesn't hold any moisture and doesn't have any nutrients in it and dries out so fast. The perennials in pots are all placed in one area and so are very easy to water and work with. Then, once the garden is letting me have a bit more time (right now I seem to be spending all day picking raspberries instead of doing anything in the flowerbeds!), I start planting out my new acquisions into the landscaping. This usually starts about the end of August and then I am planting all the way thru to October. So, when I get my hostas from the Hostageek in the next few weeks, I will plant them all up into pots and then when spots are ready for them in the flowerbeds I will tip them out of the pots and into their permanent homes at that time. Water well, mulch them and make sure that they each have a copper name tag and that their location is recorded into a book to be transferred into the database next winter. Last fall, close to freezeup I did sink some of the pots of various perennials into the ground for winter as the flowerbed that they were going into was not ready yet. They all made it thru the cold long winter that we had last year. I already have an eight year old August Moon hosta and love it! Olive Bailey Langdon you will absolutely love. I got this one from the Hostageek last year. I planted Touch of Class, also from the Hostageek, near to it and the two compliment each other, color wise, so well. Blue Mouse Ears is so cute...I have this one planted in a few places. Bonanza and Salieri have been here for years. Salieri is so so dark. You made some good choices! Brenda

I found this on Piviones Riviere's website. WHAT IS THE BEST PERIOD TO PLANT ? How do you plant a peony? To obtain the best results in peony cultivation, pay very special attention to the planting process. *Planting bare roots should be done between September and mid-March. *It is better to plant peonies in the autumn so that the root system can grow before the leaves come out. *Planting can be done during the winter period even with frost during the night as long as it disappears during the daytime. *After March, due to the growing of leaves and vegetation, it is not recommended to plant bare root peonies. *If you want to plant later, we offer cultivated plants in containers that you can buy either from our nursery or at the flower shows we go to. *Tip : In case of frost when you receive our plants, place the parcel in a cool area  a cellar or a garage - and open the parcel. The individually packed plants can remain for a month in their packaging without any harm.

Update, six weeks later. The tree doesn't want to go on the cart... Red arrows point to one sucker branch and one sucker bud(?). Purple dashed line is what I believe to be the graft scar. Green arrows point to what I hope are new growth above the graft. These appeared all within the last week; maybe due to the days getting longer, maybe due to a few degrees rise in temperature inside as some other inhabitants were running fevers. I have read on this forum that sucker branches are usually not desirable. Are they worth letting grow for a while, if they are the only source of active chloroplasts on the tree? My hunch is yes, but I admit knowing very little about the regrowth tendencies of Meyer lemons. My next question is whether the old branches are actually dead,or whether they have some hope of rejuvenation: Most of these branches used to be green, but are now brown or near black. Some show hints of green near the branch collar. Is it worthwhile to prune back branches which look brown, if that might encourage growth from the same collar? Or do brown branches ever return to green, and it's worthwhile to wait? Thanks, all!