I bought 60 dwarf Phlox seeds from an Etsy seller. The instructions were skimpy, so I did what I do for other seeds: put them in peat pellets on a heating mat under grow lights. Nothing happened after 8 days (my other seeds germinated in 3 days), so I looked for help and saw this post. I decided to keep 30 seeds on the heating mat and put the other 30 seeds on a covered outdoor porch to see which approach would work best. Interestingly, both the heating mat seeds and the porch seeds started germinating about the same time: 11 days after planting. Five have germinated as of today but I hope many more will follow!

Hi Rhoni Ann, Lots of people are painting red/orangey-red brick homes nowadays. If you're a fan of the Fixer-Upper TV show on HGTV, you've probably noticed that Chip and Joanna Gaines have totally transformed the exterior of many brick homes by painting that red/red-orange brick in all sorts of lovely shades of gray, creamy white or beige. After they add new trim and sometimes shutters and window boxes (depending on the style of the home and the look they're going for), along with new landscaping, those homes look just as transformed on the exterior as they are on the interior. Keep in mind that once you paint your brick, assuming you are going with a lighter color, it will reflect heat and light, but I have found there are lots of plants which grow well on the hotter west and south sides of homes that what a person might expect. First of all, if you will amend your clay with compost or some other organic material before you plant, then your plants will do so much better that it will blow your mind and you won't have to water nearly as much. We have dense, thick red clay (the kind you could use to make clay pots) that had zero organic matter when I tested it when we moved here in 1999. When they dug the holes for our percolation test for our septic system when we built our house, most all of the water remained in the holes after 24-hours, which explains why we have a lagoon instead of leach lines. Along our south and west facing walls, cannas have done really well in only lightly amended clay. If you plant the tall ones that get 4-7' tall, they will form their own mini-wall along the bring wall, and they don't really mind the heat as long as you water them occasionally in summer. They die back in winter, but you can cut off the ugly dead foliage at the ground so you don't have to look at it all winter long. Cannas are very strong, resilient plants, fitting into my favorite category of plants that I describe in this manner: they won't die and you can't kill them. In front of those taller cannas, you could the short, compact evergreen shrubs of your choice so you'd have something green there year-round. Some of the shorter varieties of hollies would work, and hollies come with many different leaf shapes from the very small leaves of yaupon hollies to the larger leaves of other forms of holly. If you don't want evergreen shrubs on the west side of the house, you could plant daylilies, lantana, gomprena (aka globe amaranth), zinnias, cosmos and some perennial members of the salvia family. All of these do well in well-amended, well-draining soil and only need moderate amounts of water in summer as long as they are well mulched. Or, you could plant ground cover type plants that thrive in full sun. Purple wintercreeper is a lovely greenish groundcover that is low maintenance. We just cut ours back to the ground with the string trimmer once or twice a year. It turns purplish-green in the cold season. Its flowers are not very obvious but then they give you lovely little berries. Hollies, by the way, are one of my favorite plants for clay soil because once they are established many of them are really drought-tolerant as well as heat-tolerant. If you like crape myrtles they are very heat-tolerant and come in all sorts of sizes, from more tree-like forms that can attain 20-40' Crape Myrtle Trails--Varietiesin height to weeping forms only a couple of feet tall. Be sure to purchase named crape myrtles varieties so you can Google those varieties before you buy to ensure you're getting the right size for your area. Sometimes the ones sold at places like Wal-Mart don't give a variety name on the tag, so you have no idea what you're getting. There's nothing worse than planting a big variety of crape myrtle in an area that is only appropriate for a small to medium sized one because you'll spend tons of time trying to prune back the big one to keep it small enough. Depending on the color you ultimately choose to paint your brick, you might like some of the Black Diamond series of crape myrtles with their purplish-black foliage. They would look striking against a lighter colored wall and they don't get too large. To give you an idea of the many kinds of crape myrtles available, I'm going to link the page of the Crape Myrtle Trails of McKinney, TX, which is my favorite website for Crape Myrtle information. I haven't tried Rose of Sharon on the west side of the house, but it probably would be alright. I have several kinds of hardy hibiscus in the border around our large veggie garden and they are both heat tolerant and drought tolerant. They are growing in heavily amended clay in raised beds, but there's a couple of smaller ones at the lower north end of our heavily sloping garden and they are equally heat and drought tolerant, growing at grade level in soil only lightly amended. Another perennial flower (often considered a reseeding annual, but perennial in my garden) that doesn't mind the west side of a building is tall verbena, Verbena bonariensis. It is one of the most heat-tolerant and drought-tolerant plants I've ever grown and is a real butterfly magnet. I use lots of autumn sage (Salvia greggii) plants as they tolerate heat and plentiful sunshine. They are perennials and are semi-evergreen. Sometimes they bloom on and off throughout the winter here in zone 7b. I just shear them back pretty hard right before new growth begins in early Spring to keep them more compact and more manageable. There's tons of options for the west side of a house. Just avoid things like hydrangeas that must have afternoon shade in our climate and avoid plants that need perfect drainage. Good luck, and if you have more questions, I hope you'll ask them. Also, watch for the Master Gardener's plant sale in your county, which has a very active MG group that puts on a great plant sale in the Spring. This year's plant sale is May 11th. More info about it can be found on the website linked below. Pottawatomie County Extension Service Webpage The Master Gardeners have a display garden at the ag extension building and you might visit it to get some ideas. Dawn

Hi I chose to buy my canary island palm just from looking at the leaves! They are so beautiful! I need to know how to care for it. When I bought it, the leaves were lovely and green but now the points have browned and two leaves are dying and one leaf is not looking too well. I only have experience of growing geraniums, roses and a castor oil plant which began to die when I brought it home. It was years ago and I took it to a gardener who began by taking the whole plant out of the pot and sifting through the roots. He found a maggot and shouted 'there's your cause' and the castor oil plant grew well after that. It got so big, I decided to sell it. It got flowers on top, it was taller than me (about 7ft 6) and it was producing seeds which were gernimating all around it in the pot. I didn't want that many castor oil plants so I sold it. So when I bought the canary island palm (phoenix canariensis)I began to sift through the roots to make sure there was nothing chomping at the roots. I discovered it had a ball root and I couldn't get it back into the pot, so I chopped some off. Now, I'm worried. Will it die from the root trauma I gave it? Also, I wanted to take cuttings from it so that I would have loads of them planted outside and if any got stolen, I could just think 'ha!!! I still got the main one!! You can't take that!!' because people keep steeling my roses. I plant them and days later, the whole plant goes missing. I have the main ones secure so they can't be stolen! So I took a leaf from the canariensis and planted it. It too seems to be dying. Please help!!!!! I want to know how to look after the main canariensis and I want to take cuttings and plant them outside to fill up my front yard and stop the neighbour's six cats dolloping there. There is really nothing more unsightly then taking two hours to get ready to go out only to step out and first experience the horrific whiff of fresh dollops!!! AND if there are no fresh ones when I leave, those cats certainly get some ready and waiting for when I get back!! It's a nightmare!! I've tried repellents but the cats don't seem bothered. My roses do the trick but I wanted more green. So please help Shazia

Thanks Gill and Rina :) Gill, I repotted the original big mama jade last night into a larger pot and I did find it's pretty unstable in the mix. I had to water in order for it to settle enough to hold them plant up! Once it dries out I may change the mix out for something with larger grit. I have purchased a couple colours of aquarium gravel for top dressing, may need to add some to big mama's mix. Rina, I have a front yard full of beautiful gravel - we went with a gold mix instead of the plain grey... There's a wealth of top dressing out there HA! Never even thought! Not to mention all the many, many other rocks I collect - Quartz and petrified seashell and wood, also seashells and beach glass ... It's a bit of a joke in my family. Some people can keep their rock collections on a shelf ... Not us, we have a yard full. Now we can top dress with all the pretties.