Very nice garden. That's a pretty bean flower! And so many pumpkins. You're fortunate to have so much room to grow them. Your pigeon peas look great. They will grow up to 7 or 8 feet. Mine bloom and produce in the fall through winter. Flowers are very pretty too.

I rarely fertilize my Pandorea vine, maybe 1x/4-6 wks, and have it in full morning sun and filtered afternoon sun. My variegated blue potato bush started blooming late this year, about 2 weeks ago. That's in full sun. It also gets infrequent feedings. These get cut back at the end of the season and go in a minimally heated greenhouse over the winter. I cut back on watering and don't feed them until spring. They don't go completely dormant, they don't really do anything. My tender tropicals are kept in a warm greenhouse. I also use HID lights for the plants that I want to keep growing but stick pretty much to the metal halide bulbs and use high pressure sodium bulbs on very few plants. My goal is to keep them healthy and am not interested in blooms over the winter. Keeping the Pandorea and solanum at 50-60 is a bit cool if you want to encourage growth but fine if you just want them to survive the winter. I have no idea what the Brilliantasia owariensis is. Definitely let the brugs go dormant over the winter. I keep mine in an unheated garage but raise the pots off the cement floor. I'm in 7a so it's a bit warmer then you. A cool dark storage room or basement should be fine. Like Diggy said just enough water to keep the roots from drying out. Brugs are super heavy feeders. During the growing season I feed them weekly and also give micro nutrients. My brugs haven't bloomed that well the past couple years because the weather has been so screwy with the extreme hot and cold temps. Good luck.

Cori Ann, that was a hilarious story, I could not stop laughing! By the way, I posted some pics of TRM climbing over an arch on your post, hope it can help in answering your question. By the way, I also saw you ordered Figaro Panarosa - you will looooove that rose - it is one of my favourites with very little thorns (I have it espaliered on the fence between Claire Rose and John Claire). Please update us later on how it is growing in your garden! Beth and Cynthia: Acropolis is very pretty! We don't have it here but I wish I could see it in real life. Koko Loko is not in commerce here either but I obtained one plant from Ludwig (I actually had two but one did not make it). I rarely see the brown colouring on it but I love the grey tones as well. I do however wish I could get a rose with the same colouring in a nice old fashioned shape. I will try to post some more photos soon but will do it on the rose gallery :-) Liezel

Yes vesfl, my Mary rose is nice and saturated deep pink. I believe this is because it only receives morning sun. I really like the nonstop blooming. The fragrance is actually pretty good, needmore. I just never cut any anymore, because they only last about a day or so cut. That's a real bummer, because cutting is a at least half the fun for me. I like to enjoy my blooms indoors, especially when it's too hot to be out much. My Mary Rose is VERY heavily virused, but still blooms really well. I am LOVING this cooler weather! I cannot remember it ever being like this in midAugust. I sure hope we don't get a furnace blast of heat after this, but it's likely. We are supposed to have a week of mild temps. Then September will probably bring our Santa Ana winds, heat, and fire. I dread that, but at least my water and electricity will get a break this week. Ingrid, I know what you mean. It really is always something, isn't it? Goodness, I think if everything was ever all perfect at once, I'd invite everyone I knew over for a look! I'd also make a utube video and post it here:) I don't have any raidiating heat, like you do. I know makes a big difference, plus the temp difference is substantial considering how few miles we are apart. I'm no fan of those LONG MRI's either. I've been putting it off, and it needed to be done. Yesterday I was worthless afterwards, as they had given me Valium in the IV. I've had lots of muscle spasms lately,(always worse in the summer heat) and they needed me to be still for two hours. When I came home, I was still dopey and dumb. Best not to garden like that. I'm thankful it was such a cool day, and not even the pots required water. I just watched some TV with Sebastian. Interestingly, I have found he will lay on the bed with me if I remove the comforter. Following the advice of someone here,(sorry name escapes me atm) removing the scent of Millie seems to help. He does however, continue to lose weight. I'm going to have to send him back in with my son soon. It's just so hard. In order to get the 75% discount,(which I need) he has to go to work with my son all day. Sebastian gets squeezed in for his tests or exams whenever they have time. He hates it there, and I feel terrible sending him all day long, adding to his stress. One day, he even came home without being seen at all, because they were so busy. I can't complain though, this would already have cost me thousands instead of hundreds, and I'm so grateful. The scary/confusing thing is that he has lost nearly 5lbs in 2 months. He is VERY sensitive to my health and emotions, plus Millie is bothering him. The head vet there says that amount of weight cannot be emotional. Yet, they are not finding anything. It's very troubling, and just adds to my stress, which in turn, probably adds to his. He really does stress out when I do. Sorry guys, I probably should have emailed that to Ingrid. I didn't intend to go into all that when I began. Cassandra, I'm not 100% about what I'm going to use. I know I need to do it fast, before my whole garden is affected. I don't spray or use chemicals either, but I'm going to in this barrel. I was just in no shape to have my dad stop somewhere yesterday so I could look over my options. I'll research and update it here. I know exactly what you mean about a bell going off on n your head. I have all sorts of bugs, and I complain about them, but most of the time I don't even identify them because I'm not going to do anything to them. When Jim posted pictures, I heard that same dingdong:) That's why it's never bloomed! When I looked, sure enough, the ends looked burnt and they crumbled off when I touched them. The midge can get into your whole garden and all your roses. You could have no blooms, and no new growth. Whatever we do, we need to do it fast. It's something like every 14 days the larvae hatch out of the soil and start eating and multiplying again. They can devastate an entire rose garden. Let me know what you do, too. I'm going to research and do something today. Lisa