My favorite is Benary giant zinnia⦠I am tempted to grow NOTHING else⦠the colors are fantastic, and theyâÂÂve got great vase life. I do pinch once, but other than that they do great on their own. I love dahlias as well for cut flowers⦠and are nice since the (here in PA) bloom season picks up when other stuff is dying down. p.s.- my Lisianthus takes FOREVER. And it will stay TINY for the longest time. As long as youâÂÂve got grow lights on them, they should show up eventually!! Here is a link that might be useful: My Garden

I have a question along these lines & thought it would be proper to bring it up in this post rather than start a new thread. What about Lemon Balm? Would it survive outdoors during a Z6b (Middle TN) Winter? Worst low temp probably only a few days of 15-20. Otherwise, average low of about 30 or so. If it wouldn't survive in these conditions, what's the lowest possible temps it can stand for long periods (would let me know where I would need to keep it; if storage closet would do or if it would need more warmth)? Also, will it need constant or much light during the Winter to survive? Any & all help appreciated. A friend has offered me 5 baby Lemon Balm plants & I don't want to take them if they will just die in my care. Thanks - Steve

Yes, Paula, it is quite the mess. Clean-up is underway, and during the night last night, the county pushed a couple of trees out of the roadway and the electric company got the power back on. Al returned the neighbors guttering, and metal to him (over the fence) as they wait for the insurance company to arrive on that one. He lost his porch, his roof and the insulation just before the heavy rain hit in the second storm. There are no building codes in our neighborhood so we have everything from small mobiles to quarter-million dollar homes. Of the structures, that one took the biggest hit. In one of these pictures you can see the top of a large tall metal shop building just to the right of the trailer. It had a big tree in the road in front of it and it took down the electric lines coming to our house. It also ripped the front right off of his electrical box, so they got lucky not to have more damage to that shop. The electric company was in the neighborhood right after the storm but it was about 1:30 before they got to that point and 3:30 when our power came on and we were both up and closing windows so we could have air conditioning again. One dock was blown so hard that the catwalk looks like they tried to make a right turn. You can see that in my Facebook pictures. My neighbor across the street has an uprooted tree laying on top of his fishing boat. As many boats as we have sitting around, it is a small wonder that only one of them has a tree across it. There were at least 3 large living trees that were pulled out of the ground, just bringing a large root ball with them. Across the street to our east there was a dead tree which had previously had all of the leaves and limbs removed, so nothing to catch the wind except the trunk and it brought it out of the ground. The tree that we lost had a diameter of 21 inches where I measured the stump about 3 feet above the ground, but it broke much higher than that as you could see in the pictures. The first half went south and fell between the storage building and the storm shelter. The second half didn't fall until the next storm cell came through and it fell across the back of the house, but it was so tall that it was supported at a much higher point on the house rather than all of the weight being on top of that small room. That small room is my sewing room and like my garden, is a much brighter (and hotter) place with that tree gone. I went to Church for one meeting today because I had an obligation to teach, and by the time I got home, the tree was off of the house. We have cut wood, branches, and junk everywhere, but the hard part is done. They removed some of the branches and tossed them down into the garden and I got most of those moved today because they were all over and around the air conditioner. One piece of wood rolled off the house while they were working and bent the air conditioner but it still works. LOL (Dawn, it was about 3 feet from that window Al had just replaced, so the guys all told him a limb went through it, but they were kidding.) I have the worlds best neighbors and when I left this morning, there were 6 guys in my yard to remove the tree. Al rushed home to work with them while I went to Sunday School, so we went to Church in shifts today. LOL I have been having a email correspondence with Dick Faurot, a TV6 weatherman, and he says it was a straight line wind event, or micro-burst, but I have written back with why I believe otherwise. During the event, which came in from the west, the windows had so much water on them, it was like trying to see through bubble wrap. Afterward, there were leaves plastered to the east side of the house. I can see that a straight wind might take out a large tree because of the limbs and leaves providing surface for it to blow against, but it is hard for me to realize that just straight wind can take out a large tall stump that would not have much surface for wind resistance. We have metal hanging in trees probably 20-25 feet above the ground. Areas of SW Missouri, and NE Arkansas also reported damage, and one of my neighbors has a relative in NW Arkansas found the new truck he bought the day before under a fallen tree after the storm. All of the damage we have heard of was from the same storm and we are all fairly close to each other. Anyway, the horrible fires were going on and everyone was watching them, so we had no warning for our county unless it came after we lost power. Counties around us had warnings, but I never saw anything issued for us. Mr. Faurot told me that he forwarded my email to the National Weather Service for analysis and I heard helicopters here 3 different times today. I will wait for the experts to weigh in on this one, but this Oklahoma girl believes we had a weak tornado, and the straight line winds they are describing were in a later cell.....and as for the Mesonet rainfall amount....we need another weather station in this county because the one they have now never reflects our weather in the northern part of the county. Here is a link that might be useful: Storm

Buy a top quality shop vac. Buy good quality outdoor bristle rug for every entrance to the house. Collect throw rugs at garage sales and etc. Lay them along all interior walkpaths from kitchen. Get more than one broom and dustpan and leave them along the dust sources. Buy cheap replacement bulk light bulbs. You'll break a lot of them. Get some rags or old towels to have on hand for the inevitable call for cleanup rags. Put bandaids, kleenex near work area. Use your picnic table as a work surface near an outside faucet and round up two plastic dishpans. You don't need hot water for most dishwashing. If you can get another picnic table or other weather-friendly work surface like those fold-away tables from Office Max, you can eat at one and do cleanup at another. A battery headlamp can be useful for fall/winter outdoors at twilight. Don't pack up your trays. Collect trays, laundry baskets, other baskets, boxes for hauling stuff to and from your cooking and eating spots. Keep your plastic silverware, let them accumulate in a bucket of water, wash them when you run out. Don't leave big packages of paper napkins out in the rain (don't ask how I know this). Get one of those orange (?) long industrial electrical cords if you're going to cook outside using small appliances. I got pretty good at using a turkey baker for things like a frozen pie, but this kind of top-loading oven can give you nasty burns unless you plan the take-out before you do the put-in. Keep your hotpads, long-handled utensils, etc. at hand. Goodwill or similar institutions are a good source for useful stuff you might donate back again later but for now, it's useful for you. It's kind of fun to go slumming. I bought 4 bright colored cheapie matching mugs that were "construction area only" for coffee, etc. but the guys thought they were too good and it took a lot of coertion to make them realize that I could round them up and clean them better than our more obscure ones. I would guess drinking glasses would work same. Suggestion to use already ground coffee is a good one. Decide which portable radio/CD player will be sacrificed to the project. Wash it down occasionally with a rag. Put your best portable audio equipment away somewhere.