Great Post!! For all my sins, I'm doin' alright here. My grass, such as it is, is brown and clumpy, I don't water, except for the trees I plant, and a few small flower beds. Haven't had to mow for several weeks. I refuse to rake a single leaf (I live in the country for Pete's sake!) And I share my compost from the sheep with 3 or 4 'townies' for fertilizer and mulch! However, I little rain here would be ok God. I'm passing this one on too. thanks!

Not me in the picture. I grow wheat. If it ain't wheat it's a weed. :-( I take anywhere between 350-500 metric tonnes of yard trimmings each year and rotate the application between three fields. Some I use to make actual compost but 80-90% is applied directly to a fallow field. Carrie...I had a squirrel chew a really nice hole in a large rubbermaid container I had bird feed in. It was an incredibly perfect round hole up near the top of a three foot container. How the heck he hung over the edge of the lid to do it is beyond me. I hate squirrels almost as much as I hate rats. Lloyd

Thanks everyone. I still can't believe how beautiful everything looked. Jon's garden had grown up and evolved in such wonderful ways since I had seen it last. Everything grows and fills in so quickly there. And Mottisfont had undergone a lot of renewal and looked the most amazing I've ever seen any garden to look. Imagine the smell of mock orange, rose, and honeysuckle mingled together and drinking it in for breakfast... But, I do NOT have big feet, those are Jon's clogs I slipped on! Jon is so naughty! Lori

Mantis:Yes, the blooms has always been around 6 inch blooms.The first ones this season may have been a little larger then this. DEBRA: thank you. ELLIE, i think this Zinnia is very weird, too,I found 3 or 4 like it, all red ones. crackingtheconcrete; I thought about my title after I hit the submit tab, and thought every one is going to think its raining here. haha sorry, wish it WAS raining here again. I had to get out and water again this evening and it was 95 degees.Ms Blackie makes it injoyable tho, just watching her. Sge stands behind me until I water a certain area,as she dont want to get wet, but, after I have watered a area,and the water has soaked in or run off,which it does alot but the ground is wet anyway, and when she dont see water just sitting, she gos and lays down there where its wet.She stretches out with her belly on the wet ground.its her way to cool off I guess. RITA, I seen a couple of these weird zinnias in your back terraces up high.I was looking at one of your last posts, over the weekend I think and you had a couple pictures of the zinnias,and I seen a couple like these weird thing I have, except i think yours has more peddles on them. Jean