Hi Karyn, thanks for the info and the kind offer, I have emailed you. The seeds I bought just said double cream and double purple, no mention of the word 'metel'....how do you know its a metel, whats the difference? So brugs can get to 6ft in a season, crikey! I thought these guys could grow. We went down to -18c last winter, so we will see what happens this time round, brrrrr! It surely can't be that bad again...can it?? The g/h was lagged and heated to within an inch of its life but I still lost some plants in there, not to mention my outdoor palm tree. Hi Kathy, no worries, its given me more info anyway....thanks! Cheers, Gill from the UK

Daturas are short lived perennials. They typically grow no taller than 4' and the flowers face up to the sky. They are commonly called Devil's Trumpets because they look up to the heavens. Brugmansia's are tall shrubs with their flowers looking down to the earth hence the name angel trumpets. They used to be both lumped into the genus of brugmansia but now are seperated. Both are in the solonaceae family and are highly toxic.

Actually, in my neighborhood it's been raining all day. I've been trying to catch up on the housework that I didn't get done yesterday because I was walking the dogs, going for a bike ride, using my grill for the first time this year, cleaning out the garden, etc.. There is something relaxing about gardening in the rain though. Just maybe on a day that isn't so cold.

sue - yeah, we go to the beach all winter long too - weekend here and a weekend there. Someday I hope we have a house there. The beach is beautiful all year - the entire maine/nh coast is beautiful all year though. It's the most beautiful place in the world - Nubble on a stormy day with the water crashing up? The giant mansions that line the coast in Rye? (we used to "pick" out those houses as kids, which were mine, which were my brothers) But I'm a summer beach girl at heart and to walk around with sand between my toes and the sun out, and a good outside shower at the end of the day...ahhhh...and the smell of the marsh at night and the sound of the waves...