Long time no type! I've been working, as they say, "24/7" during our super-short season, and it's starting to show. Landscaping is going well, especially the new biennials and annual varieties that have come from many people. How GORGEOUS the Blue Shrimp Plant is!

Still at it steadily (landscaping, my little market-garden, my Heirloom Tomato Patch, my herb gardens....aaauugghh!), but I'm taking a few minutes during this current hailstorm to say hello and catch up a bit. (Alberta, sigh....seems like there's a new pelting every day.)

Doing some extreme landscaping to our place, including a lot of fruit trees and bushes. The shade gardens are thriving, and the water-features are slowly coming together. We decided lawns are over-rated, and will only keep a small patch for the dogs to roll in: the rest is garden. And we've got a huge corner lot, so it's a LOT of garden. Lots of work - creating paths, trellises, fountains, all by hand (have materials, not $$$$, and I'm an artisan anyway) - but it's GOOD work, leading to GOOD exhaustion. Or so I keep telling myself. ;-)

My experiments into Heirloom tomatoes are going pretty well. I've got about 100 plants all told, with roughly 40-ish varieties. I've had to set up a drip-irrigation system for them, it's the only way I can keep up. From the enormous variety of seed I was sent (THANK YOU, GRUNGY!!), I was able to propogate all varieties but one: Valencia. Zero germination. I'm not sure why that is; next year I'll had a heating element to my starting-trays...perhaps that's why it tanked.

And yes, I've kept every letter and request for seeds....which I really hope I'll harvest and dry correctly *crosses fingers*.

Speaking of requests, I *think* I answered and sent out seeds/plants to everyone who had asked (you may recall, I ended up with a dandy case of pneumonia this spring). The one thing that I haven't been able to do yet is send along rooted clematis. I've been trying to root my 5 varieties (3 were gifts from my neighbor this year), but I'm having zero luck. The seed-pods are forming, and I'll send those out...but does anyone have any ideas re: rooting the climbing varieties?

Another plea for advice: Banana plants. Commercially grown bananas don't have seeds, though sometimes "organic" types (from health-food stores) might. No, the little dots inside a banana-slice are NOT the seeds, I was surprised to learn. So I suppose I should hunt for banana seeds. OR for sprouts: it's the world's tallest herbaceous plant (not a woody "tree" at all), and reproduces from offsets that grow from the base. The tree flowers, fruits, and dies...and the next one keeps on going.

I'd like to have one. But where on EARTH can I find the seeds? Or the sprouts? "HELP!", oh wise and wonderful gardenfolk!

Guess that sums up where I'm at, more or less. This year (for a change) I've catalogued my seeds as I've collected them, and I'm looking forward to Sept/Oct when I can tidy up the collection and let you know what I have. One thing's for sure: I'm drowning in Chinese Lanterns. That's going to have a "Available, PLEASE TAKE SOME!" tag on it.

Take good care, all. I'd love to hear from you, learn how your gardens are doing. I may not answer for a while, but don't worry...you ain't getting rid of me THAT easily! :-)

Cheers,

Merry