Bruce, thank you very much for the useful information. I learned something and I appreciate it. I too would like to hear more specific information about quince if anyone else has some. But your general rule of thumb for flowering bonsai is really helpful. It is a relatively new subject for me. Thanks again. FYI - Bonsai Today - issue #86 has specific information (3 pages of sketches and text) about shaping Japanese quince and general care info. No mention of waiting until after bloom to repot. - That may just mean it is basic info every bonsai fancier should already know. Shame on me! Bonsai Today is published by Stone Lantern Publishing Company (see www.stonelantern.com) they sell back issues if you are interested and do not already have that one. Good luck. Pete

So I was able or forced to hold off on collecting the quince. It never dropped leaves on the bottom third of the plant. It has a southern exposure against the wall, with the furnace outlet a few feet away, and the grass is still green in the area. On the north side of the house, two smaller and uglier quinces have no leaves and quite a few flowers. Go figure. I have a huge plastic pot and fresh bark and turface ready for my quince, but now I need to decide whether to dig NOWnownow or wait for signs of leaves. Any thoughts? I have a few plants to collect this year: my old native Wisteria that a friend no longer wants bullying his garden, a weird hybrid citrus bush, a japanese holly. Is starting now (mid January, zone 7 or 8) too soon? The weather has been dry and not that cold so far. Thanks.

I would like to learn what bulbs (other than paperwhites) are suitable for forcing over just touching water and colored glass/ pebbles. I saw a pot with rocks for sale at BJ's Wholesale Club - it had two large purplish bulbs included - but no directions, or clues to the bulbs on the package - or in it. I am tempted to go back and buy it - just to let it grow and see what they are! I went to an open house this week - where the hostess had placed lots of paperwhites over pebbles in very tall glass vases of different sizes and shapes all over her house....The height of the vase supported the flowers as they grew and they looked beautiful with large lacy gold bows on the vases. I thought that the arrangement was very clever - as my problem with paperwhites over the years has always been their tendancy to fall over when they are fully mature. Any ideas for other bulb choices? Thanks!

Michelle, I agree that 2011 was truly horrible. We were out fighting wildfires day and night and were living on Gatorade, bottled water and whatever food I could grab in a hurry and take to fires. Forget watering the garden....I was watering firefighters. It was the worst summer ever with more firefighters sick from the heat than you can even imagine, including me. It ruined me for gardening because once you've had heat exhaustion or heat stroke, your body cannot tolerate heat the way it once did. After a lifetime of being very careful to take care of myself out in the heat, I blew it that summer----not from carelessness, but just because the demands for assistance at fires were so high and I couldn't ignore them. Nowadays I no longer can stay out and work in the garden for as long as I want....I have to come indoors before it gets too hot, which cramps my style and makes me cranky, but I do it anyhow. I don't want to ever get too overheated again. This should have been an easier summer than it has been. We've gone 61 days now without receiving 0.25" of rainfall on any one day. At our house, our total rainfall in that 61 days is 0.13", meaning our dry spell here this summer has been more prolonged than our worst dry spell in 2011. What has saved the trees, at least, is that we had roughly 54" of rainfall this year (our annual average is 39") before it stopped raining. Our upper level soil moisture is 0.0 in the upper few inches of soil, but there is good soil moisture a couple of feet down. Our Keetch-Byram Drought Index at the present time is almost as high as it was during the worst of 2011. In 2011, I understood what was going on as the drought developed throughout the year....even back in the winter and spring as we headed into summer, so watching it was like seeing a train wreck coming.....This summer's Flash Drought has been harder to fathom because it came out of left field so abruptly, beginning while we still had roads and fields under water from the flooding. On the last day that it rained, we had no idea it was "never" going to rain again for the next couple of months. If we had, we probably would have enjoyed the flooding more than we did. It is 102 degrees here today and just so danged hot, and there have been fires in the area, but not in our fire district. (Knock on wood!) The cold front is supposed to come through here overnight and to bring us blessedly cooler temperatures and rainfall. I can't wait, and I'm gonna be one mad gardener if the rain misses us again, although I'll still enjoy having highs in the 80s or lower 90s instead of in the 100s. Our next door neighbor in Ft. Worth had the old hardy neon pink-flowered phlox commonly referred to as thrift. I loved hers, but I didn't have luck with it in our blackland prairie clay (right next door to us she had a much sandier soil), and I've never planted it here. We do have the native phlox that blooms in spring here. It lives happily in the bar ditch down by the road, where presumably it gets enough moisture from rain runoff to keep it happy....and Tim isn't allowed to mow it until it has finished blooming. On upland areas, we stay too dry for the native phlox to thrive, so I have to make sure we leave it alone and don't mow it back too early in the one area of our property that has enough moisture for it. It was gorgeous this year in April, but drowned in May's 25.5" of rain. Dawn