"For those using Photobucket: Under each thumbnail you'll see 3 sets of posting commands. You want the middle one, labeled HTML Tag. Simply select it, and it will copy automatically. Then paste it into the post. The language is a long version of the ImgSrc syntax I posted above. Check the results in Preview, and if all is well, Submit the post." Found this link in wintersown..I think the original how-to's are gone, but I hope this helps, ladyb. Wendy

Thanks everyone for looking and commenting ! Here are a few answers to your questions: 1) lilyday: Clematis is trained up tree using plant ties, then I just let it flop a bit at the top so the flowers can stretch out. 2)memo: The pic right after the hanging baskets one shows what is on the other side/left of the birdbath. 3)scottyboipdx: That is "Patricia" geranium that has green and blackish leaves, small purple small flowers held aloft on wiry stems, very early bloomer and still going as shown in the pic. I have a few other hardy geraniums, some shown in the foreground of the pic right after the hanging baskets. I also have Rozanne in 3 places because I love that one !! There are a few small suprises in that big garden, for instance there is a shade section tucked in by the irises that has 2 types of heuchera and a japanese painted fern. I also had some dahlia rhizomes that sat in the garage all last year, so I threw them in the ground this spring and lo and behold, they are growing! So there is a pretty dahlia tucked in too. I will try to take a few pics of the "suprises" you would see if you really took the time to study the plants. I put in an order last year with Green Mt Transplants, and the plants looked tiny, shriveled, awful and were 2 months late in delivering them. However, this year some of those plants survived and are growing well, so I am looking forward to seeing them bloom for the first time. They got tucked in willy-nilly last June without much hope of them surviving. I am excited for 2 hollyhocks, one of which is Peaches and Dreams, that I planted in front of a purple clemmie on an obelisk. I like the purple/orange combo so interested to see how that works out. Also excited for poppies, which I have never been able to grow. The foxgloves you see were also new last year and look great this year and are currently blooming - got Pam's Choice, a light peach one, and a strawberry one. I love foxgloves - so quintessential cottage to me. I would say my backyard garden peaks in mid to late June, and the front walkway garden peaks in fall. I added the lilies last year and they have already multiplied, so I am very excited for their bollms with that heavenly perfume. I will admit that while we have been at this house for 4 years, one of the reasons we got it was the layout of the patio, the gazebo, and the hardscaping was already done. The beds had a few shrubs/trees in them but no perennials. When I get home tonight I will post pics from the very first spring when I started planting, so you can see how things have evolved in 4 years. It has definitely been fun! We got our driveway paved last fall and now there is a very linear L-shaped bed between the existing fence that the purple clematis is on, the driveway edge, and the shed which is outside the fence. I will likely tackle that one in fall, because digging up all the grass/weeds/excess gravel will be a big job. Can't decide if I should just split some perennials to put out there, or if I want to try something different. It will be accessible to deer since it is outside the fence, so I have to keep that in mind too. Right now there is a tiny John Cabot rose planted against the fence, a bunch of tomato plants, and a sweet autumn clematis. Another area I want to develop is a mailbox garden, but that too involves lots of grass digging. I have one final area that needs work, out front there is a large island bed (not in pics) that has some established trees/shrubs in it and I would like to develop that as a part shade area, but the deer will target it. AS you can tell I have a thing for hostas, and while that would be a perfect place for hostas, the deer would destroy them. So, not sure what to do with that. Anyway, I will post pics in June as things really go crazy. Do people prefer vignette type pics that showcase 1-2 plant combos or do you like more of an overall view ? I will say that there is an angle I specifically did not photograph, and that shows the peach irises are actually pretty close to the big red/magenta knockout rose, and I hate how they clash. But I don't have the heart to move either one, and the iris don't bloom for too long, so it is fine once they stop blooming. Thanks again for looking, and stay tuned. I will add more pics this weekend when I get home. Amy

PM2: There are eagles and vultures in MA, too. I've seen both of them here (turkey vultures and bald eagles). The turkeys definitely connect me with food - if I look closely, I often see a turkey scout in the driveway next door, or across the street, or in a tree. Soon after I put food out they'll come sauntering over to grab a snack. Sometimes I try to outlast them so the smaller ground-feeding birds can eat in peace, but just when I think they've gone to roost and put food out, they come right back. Yet every once in a while they'll disappear for a week or two, which I think is their normal routine in the wild. Feed for a few days or a week in one area then move on to another. I also don't see them much during the breeding season when the big flocks split up and there's food available in the woods. I put mixed seed out so I'm not sure what they prefer, except that they really like nyjer. I had a low-hanging nyjer sock for a while and the turkeys discovered they could peck a hole in the sock and the seed would spill out onto the ground where they could easily slurp it all up. That sock is now encased in a metal feeder. The best thing I've read that they eat is ticks! In fact, I haven't seen any ticks here for a few years, although the other birds could be eating them too. I don't know if everybody is willing to keep a flock of turkeys in their yard for tick control (sort of like keeping goats to eat the poison ivy) but it's an added benefit. I've been thinking about that Ilex "Honey Maid" for a while - do you know if the Ilex "Blue Stallion" will pollinate it? Claire

Scott, First of all, with all the rain you had, it is remarkable that you had any tomatoes at all! We had that kind of rain here in April-July of 2004 (believe it or not) and I was the only person here among our "gardening circle" of friends, neighbors and acquaintances who had tomatoes at all. Our raised beds saved the day for us, because the folks who had their plants at grade level lost them when 12" of rain fell in the month of June and drowned the poor plants. I did have a lot of concentric cracking, and some vertical cracking as well, and to me the flavor of the tomatoes was not as strong as usual, but....the people with whom I shared the tomatoes were just so thrilled to have any tomatoes at all. Non-gardeners always think that rain is "always" a blessing for veggie gardeners, but the truth is that too much rain is, in some ways, more damaging than too little rain. If I had a choice (and I couldn't have "normal" weather"), I'd choose raising my veggies in drought over raising them in flooding rains. I thought about growing Celebrity, and there is NOTHING wrong with its flavor, but I am spoiled by the unique flavors of the heirlooms, so I usually don't grow it. I do, in fact like the flavor of several hybrids, among them Better Boy, Big Boy, Early Girl, Porterhouse, Little Brandywine and Bucks County. Every heirloom tomato is NOT superior in flavor to every hybrid, although a lot of them are. Roma was my dad's standard go-to tomato for sauce and salsa, so I grew up eating them and I like them. I do like LaRoma better (and so did he, once he tried it), but I quit growing it when I found Viva Italia, which is similar but has better flavor and much better disease resistance. THEN I found San Marzano which put the others to shame and I was sure it was "the" best paste tomato ever, until I grew San Marzano Redorta. At that point I was sure there couldn't be a better-tasting paste tomato, and for me, there probably isn't. And, yet, I love the flavors of Amish Paste, Martino's Roma, Grandma Mary's Paste and others like Heidi. Growing tomatoes is such a "journey" and it always amazes me when I find a "new" (to me) tomatoe that supplants one I had previously thought was the best. LOL And, guess what? In the winter, when grocery store tomatoes are all that are available, we happen to like salsa made from store-bought Romas just fine too! With salsa, it really isn't the tomato that contributes the most important part of the flavor....the tomato is just the base, and it is the peppers, onions and seasonings that make salsa taste like.....salsa! I always say to myself in winter that I won't "waste" garden space on Brandywine ever again, because 3 out of 4 years, they are very poor producers. Then, I think of their incredible taste and end up sneaking one or two into the garden somewhere. Brandy Boy has been a huge improvement, though, and gives tomatoes that taste almost as good as Brandywine, but not quite. I grow it because its' taste is close and its productivity is so much higher. Earl's Faux (grown from seed saved from Brandywine that had clearly crossed with something else, or at least that is what most people think) is close to BW in flavor and is more productive, but is not as productive in my garden as Brandy Boy. True Black Brandywine from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds was a great new find in our garden this year. It outproduced all my other blacks and purples, and the flavor is great, although it is not quite as good as Brandywine Sudduth. It may be the only Brandywine I grow from this point forward. If you garden on level land, the best way I know to get early tomatoes is to plant them using Wall O'Water or Kozy Koat devices. Unfortunately, I garden on a slope and I can't use them because they tip over and the water spills out. Gordan Graham (now deceased), the gardener from Edmond, OK, who holds the world record for the largest tomato ever grown, liked to use WOWs to get an early start.....and he started his plants so early with them that he had to stack a second WOW on top of the first to protect his plants until all danger of frost had passed. I'll try to find a description of how he did it and post it in a separate thread. Since I can't use WOWs, I mulch heavily to keep the ground warm, and cover my plants with buckets and blankets during cold spells. For a couple of years I wrapped the cages of the early-planted tomatoes with plastic, but that is a huge job and interferes with air flow. So, now if a severe cold spell with several consecutive days of sub-freezing temps threatens, I build a quick hoop house over the plants using 6mm plastic. I've managed to protect the plants from late sleet by doing that. Some of the older tomato varieties that are most resistant to cracking (some are true O-P heirlooms but some are just really old hybrids from the 1950s or earlier) include Sioux, Super Sioux, Homestead 24, Santa Clara Canner, Carnival, Mule Team, Champion, Box Car Willie, Earl of Edgecombe, Akers West Virginia, Traveler 76, Arkansas Traveler, Rutgers, Zogola, Porter (barely larger than Large Red Cherry), Porter Improved, and Bradley Pink. Most of the processing tomatoes that have "Heinz" or "Campbell" in their name are very crack-resistant, and so are some of the newer hybrids like Cobra and Amelia. If enough rain falls, though, or if you over-irrigate (and I know you wouldn't), any tomato will crack though because the excess moisture makes the inside flesh grow faster than the outer skin. I've never had any of my heirloom Livingston tomatoes crack either but I've never had the kind of moisture that you do. My favorite Livingstons are Golden Queen, Gold Ball and Paragon, but Stone and Perfection are outstanding too. Victory Seed is the only company I trust for authentic Livingston tomato seed. One thing about the Livingstons that I adore is that they grow and produce in the worst of our droughts. I don't know why they are so much tougher than other tomatoes in drought years--perhaps it is superior genetics Early tomatoes can be quite vexing. There are many years when some 70-75 DTM tomatoes give me ripe tomatoes before Early Girl does, and I have no idea why. Among the better ones for early tomatoes are Bush Early Girl, New Big Dwarf (slow in some people's gardens, but an early producer in mine), Sophice's Choice, Matina, Kimberly, Stupice (pronounced stoo-PEECH-ka, by the way), and Glacier. I use Better Bush as an early, but it is only early because I buy it when it is already quite large--clearly started by the growers in November to give early-bird gardners like me large plants in 6" pots in mid-Feb. to mid-March. Among the cherries, both Grape and Black Cherry produce very early for me. Finally, if you are looking for tomatoes that produce in our climate, one of the best (and few) "local" seed sources is Wilhite Seed, based in Poolville, Texas, west of Fort Worth. Although Wilhite's specialty is watermelons (oh my, their selection boggles the mind), they cater to market growers, so if they offer a variety, it is a good producer. Since Porter and Sons Seed went out of business in either the 1980s or 1990s, Wilhite is the only company in Texas that I buy seed from. Dawn Here is a link that might be useful: Willhite Seed Co. website