HFH has been a good performer here all summer, only taking a small rest from blooming. These were the first blooms on the new shrub, the flowers have been nearly that dark through summer and the blooms last quite well & are present in good number. Please note the foliage in this photo looks a bit tatty due to a hard frost in the second week of June. At this point in late summer, the bush has grown a bit larger and sent up two fat new canes that are probably ~30" tall. If it wants to be big here, great! The flowers are SO pretty! I am tempted to rip out Hot Cocoa, which has not been happy with the weather extremes, and replace it with another HFH. Cheers, Michelle

First of all... lovely photos, everyone! Dorothy, I'd agree with Pax... you have Red Lion and your Mom has a Red Peacock, both lovely reds! A delicious mistake in packaging! I'd be thrilled! As for seed setting... if you're growing these indoors, without the benefit of insects to help pollinate, you'll need to help if you want seeds. It's quite easy to hand pollinate these flowers, though. Simply snip off an anther loaded with the yellow pollen, and brush it on the stigma. You'll know it's ready to accept the pollen when it turns slightly upward, probably a couple of days after the bloom opens. As with any breeding, there are no guarantees... but if the pollination was successful, you'll notice the base of the flower begin swelling after the flower fades. It will continue to swell and grow, and you'll see the seed pod forming. It's ready for harvest once it begins to split open slightly on its own. The process takes a while, so be patient. Welcome to the wonderful world of Hippeastrum growing, Dorothy! If you become enamored of your first bulb, it's almost sure that you've been bitten by the bug... you'll find that addiction and obsession will follow, and soon you'll be one of us... growing way more bulbs than you have space or time for, and collecting new ones every season! Luckily for us, there are hundreds of different varieties, and a few new ones introduced every year! Ryan, I'm continually amazed by your scape numbers and repeat bloomings! What the heck IS in the water up there?! In reality, I'm sure it's a combination of your intense sunshine and your growing techniques. Getting that many flowers signals very good culture! Way to go! Or, way to grow!

Almost two years later and I finally get a white flower from one of those kits. It's suppose to be Mont Blanc but I've never seen a good pic of Mont Blanc before nor have I ever seen one in person. But it does have that shimmer to the petals and the green center which looks more yellow in my pic. I was hoping for a larger flower but I guess after almost two years of buying kits I should be happy I finally got a white flower. Anyone care to share their Mont Blanc pics?

Oh, Tiffy, I have absolutely no idea what the name of that azalea is. That bush was here when I bought my house 10 years ago. That pic does not do it justice, it was gorgeous this year. (That was a pic I almost erased before posting the link to my album!) Marianne: All I can say is take as many photos as possible and make good use of your zoom lens! The absolute joy of digital is being able to take a hundred pictures of one thing and being able to dump the 99 that didn't work. I just use a point and shoot, and I honestly 99% of the time use the auto setting. My first Panasonic had a 6 optical zoom. This new one only has 5, and I really miss that extra 1. Pitimpinai, oooh, I love that clematis. Purple is my favorite color! I have several clematises, but I think somehow they mostly ended up dark purple. I would really like to get a large white one. A couple streets away from me, someone has one on their fence and I just drool every time it blooms. Bonnie: If you're still following this! That yarrow I think is Moonshine...moonbeam? I love it. It's the only achillea I still have left in my garden. The others have all come and gone. Did I miss any other questions? I think someone asked about the name of the salvia. I don't know, I'm sorry. I am VERY type B about that kinda stuff and I never keep track of names. I do well to remember the official name :) Everytime I post over at the daylily forum I have to begin my post with "I'm sorry I don't know the name of this ...I just want to share....or....look at my beautiful seeding...uh, I have no idea who the parents are!!" I always feel so inadequate when I have to admit that! Aliska, I'm going to try to fiddle with some of the settings. I do enjoy taking photos. A friend of mine is raising her granddaughter and I am the official photographer. I keep a normal photobook with a tons of pictures in it, but since she was two I have been making books for her chronicling her year (This is the year I was two, these are my adventures when I was three...) Have you seen Shutterfly? I upload the pictures all year to there and then after her birthday I write the dialogue and pick the photos and presto, a hard bound book arrives. I have thoroughly, thoroughly enjoyed doing that. I don't really have any memories of my early childhood, so I wanted to make sure she will always remember all the fun times we had. She loves reading the books. We used to read them as bedtime stories! Uh....grab a cuppa tea, I'm really going off topic! (like I haven't been!) Here's one of my photos that I just love. It was a total accident. My nephew pointed out to me later that I had a "sports" setting on my camera :) But then I wouldn't have got this cool pic! We were at a tiny rodeo in Beaver Creek Colorado when I took this.