I think I am going to dig up Niagara Falls and put it in a pot. I don't like wasting that space on a plant that is not doing well. I bought Dress Blues because I liked Phil and Don's plant so much. A lot things remind me of Phil and I feel bad that his last growing season was such a disappointment to him :(

I think we ended up with 6.1" yesterday, bringing our May total so far to about 13" and our year-to-date total in the upper 20s. The flash flooding damage is massive, and we cancelled our Mother's Day cookout/dinner as Tim and Chris were out with the fire department working motor vehicle accidents, reporting flooded roads so our county commissioner could send out guys to barricade those roads, and participating in a high water rescue in which one of our firefighters(so proud of him!) came across a person about to be swept off a bridge and into a creek that would feeds into the Red River fairly close by and rescued her from the vehicle, and the rest of our firefighters rushed there to help him and to try to save the car from washing away (and also to try to prevent other people from driving into that flooded roadway). Other than that, nothing at all happened here in our neighborhood. I understand Hwy 77 in our part of the county may be iffy in a few places today, but there was a lot more damage in town including damaged or destroyed roadways, as far as I know, than out here in the sticks. We'll have our cookout and dinner this evening in perfect sunny weather and without rain falling on our heads and we'll be able to enjoy it more than we would have yesterday when the skies were black and rain wouldn't stop falling. The Red River is about to crest, or already has crested, at a little over 30'. For perspective, that means any equipment or cattle in the river bottom areas had to be moved to an elevation 6' higher in order to stay out of the flood waters. We saw farmers/ranchers with bottom land areas cutting and baling and moving their hay to higher ground last week, and it is a good thing, because some of those same bottom lands are under several feet of water now. I'm glad they were able to get that first cutting of hay harvested so they wouldn't lose it to the flood. The Red River is making folks nervous, and I am sure all of you likely have flooding rivers nearby that are making folks feel the same way. It has flooded much worse here before and still is 10-11 feet lower than its record flood stage reached in 1987 at the I35 bridge between Cooke County TX and Love County OK. I am worried about the Kingston area Marshall County as they usually get hit hard by all this water flowing downstream to Lake Texoma. I don't know how the plants in my garden are going to handle all this moisture. The couple of days of drying out that we have before the next rain event will help a little, but not enough. We'll know soon if the raised beds have saved the plants that are growing in them. I know everything is going to have all kinds of fungal diseases. I sprayed with Daconil a couple of weeks ago, but rain washes it off, so it isn't really helpful if it is raining every day, and that's doubly true if you're getting 3-6" a day. Some years are just this way and we just have to wait it out and see how our plants respond. It is hard to be unhappy about rain when we generally are in desperate need of more of it. I'm still not happy about the fact that it is coming in such ridiculous amounts. The weeks that typically bring our rainiest weather still lie ahead of us, and that's food for thought, isn't it? Hope everyone is well and that your plants are hanging in there and surviving.

Pretty cat, Sue, on its matching couch. It looks very warm and comfortable indoors. We got maybe an inch of snow before midnight and it's been slowly melting and condensing since then. I did shovel some of it to clear a path and make sure the birds could reach the seed on the ground. I probably could have waited for Mother Nature to do the job for me, but I get protective of the birds and critters. Temperatures are supposed to be closer to normal for the next week. Claire

'Tis the time for evergreens and berries and ornamental grasses. Hollies are a joy as the yard turns brown. Ilex opaca 'Goldie' overhanging a birdbath, next to a blue (meserve) holly: The yellow berries will hang on all winter, finally turning ripe and orangey in the spring when the birds will eat them. Japanese holly (Ilex crenata) has black berries which are not particularly ornamental, to our eyes, but the holly seems happy with them: The Winterberry leaves have finally fallen so the berries are more prominent: Carolina rose berries hang on with a backdrop of Japanese holly: And the Pilgrim Thanksgiving turkey is replaced with a Christmas tree spinner: The weather is still warm but there's a chance of snow this weekend when the temperatures drop during the rain. Claire