Thanks for the invitation, Nancy, but I'm afraid my day is full. Weather permitting, I'll be in the garden from dawn until dusk. If the weather's bad, I'll be chopping plaster from my living room ceiling. I hate to say it, but on a summer weekend, the North Fork is my second least favorite place to drive on Long Island. Only the South Fork is worse.

oops, never noticed that the pic for the cosmos psyche didn't go through correctly. sorry about that but here is the cosmos psyche Northerner, I surprised that your double click are only about 18 inches tall. It's supposed to grow to 4 feet. I had some last year and they did get that tall. I wasn't impressed with them so traded the seeds from that last fall and didn't grow them this year. Finally figured out what the orange and yellow cosmos is. It's cosmos diablo and I forgot that I had WS those seeds this year. Just have no idea what the orange ones are and the red one. I didnt' have those last year and only sowed seeds that I saved of gazebo lavender sonata fushia psyche white candystripe picotee diablo gloria sonata lavender daydream seashells white seashells pink pied piper versailles red sonata white so where it came from, the red is beyond me. I have no idea what that little white and purple petunia is either. I only know that the seeds came from a very dark purple petunia and or a very pale pink petunia that my neighbor purchased just before a local nursery closed for the month of August. She couldn't say no to the price and she planted them all in one pot. So the seeds where a mix. I have a string around the flower so that I can save seeds from it and not mix them up with the other seeds. Highaltransplanter, my plants are huge, but the toms are still small. Last year some of my cherokee purple did crack on the top but they still tasted wonderful, wouldn't be without them. The extremes in weather temps and water can cause toms to crack, but to me that is part of growing your won tomatoes in the garden and enjoying them. Tiny tim has a sweet but a bit tart flavor to it, and I didn't find the toms that small when ripe, about the size of a sweet 100. My 25 year old daughter likes them better than the sweet 100. I never heard of the mini bush yellow cherry and couldn't find much about it when i did a search. sounds interesting though and one I would like to try as well. I should have plenty of saved seeds from the tiny tim and my other toms for trades in the fall. Angie, thanks for the complement, not sure I would say I am an awesome gardener though. Some of my plants are about as sick looking as you can get and not sure why. Some has to do with the craziest weather I have seen in my life. At the moment the news and weather people are telling me that more rain has fallen in the month of July where I live than has fallen since the 1920's. Gee, didn't need to make me feel worse about the weather and all the rain than I already do. And the severe thunderstorms that have moved through on almost a daily basis for almost 2 weeks has been unreal. But that's the life of a gardener. Some years are better than others and it's either feast or famine when it comes to good weather. A pic of one of the storms that went through about 2 weeks ago, taken from the back door. No, I don't live in the tropics or a tropical rain forest. I live in a suburb northwest of Boston MA.

I know what you mean about staying away from the hosta forum when my hostas are still hiding. It usually just make me even more sad to see hostas up and about when I know mine are usually at least a month behind. I think I suffer from hosta depression during the winter;) Atlantis has been a very fast growing hosta for me. It's in the Abba Dabba family, which for the most part are fast growing. Jen

No i did not think of a forest. I have a problem with erosion and was trying to plant things with root systems that would hold the soil in place. From what I have read the grasses and native flowers seem to do that best. The only trees on the site are some sort of hawthorn tree, Aliantus also called the "tree of heaven" (which is a non native invasive weed tree), grape vine which bear no fruit and english ivy which I suspect was planted to prevent erosion. The soil was eroded due to a high canopy of trees covered in grape vines and not much was thriving at the soil level. I have since removed the grape vine from the trees and attempted to kill the aliantus trees. I will leave the hawthorn trees. I put the pumpkins all over the place partly as art, and to water and fertilize some of the things I planted on the hill. In the future i will have a compost pile and put them all in one place. Most of the seeds are eaten by the squirrels and birds. It looks weedy on the hill but some of the stuff is actually just branches and debris from the previous owners. Easier to throw it down the hill then it is to put at the curb. I did order today from American meadows.. only a few things but in quantity. I also was careful about checking for native status with a secondary source. I did not order any grasses yet. I am hoping to grow bluestem from seed. Thanks again you all have been very helpful.. i keep forming a plan based on the advice I receive from the Garden Web! Here is a link that might be useful: The purple house is not mine!