Linda, Thank you for asking. Yes, I confess. I love cannas. In my climate, there are only a few people I know that can leave them in the ground year round and I consider them magicians with microclimates. The rest of us must store them over winter somehow. I prefer not to dig mostly out of laziness. You are exactly right about the bubble pack and brown paper. Brown paper for darkness and bubble pack to provide some insulation since my garage is not heated. Once they all green up, I will pull out all the brown dead leaves from last year and clean them up. In late May, they will be able to stay outside all day. For now, the canna trolley it is. I also gave them some kelp water about every 3rd water. And this year, I gave them a sprinkle of milorganite because I read that it can give you huge cannas. I don't know all the variety names that I have. I never really kept track. I do know that I have Bengal Tiger which I bought last year and a yellow one called Harvest Yellow. I actually found that out by posting on this forum which was so fun! I have a red one, a hot pink one, and I have a dwarf variety as well. The pots are pretty full and I should probably divide. I did divide the yellow one last fall so I'm waiting to see how that turned out before dividing others. I don't have the best pictures of mine, but promise to try to get better photos this year. Harvest Yellow - photo taken August 2016 (this one blooms really late)

So here's the completed project with the Centor Blinds. Check out the install video at their website and realize that the casing that houses the blind assembly sticks out from the door unit a good 4-6" and looks shady onside- wish I'd taken a photo of that before having the left and right sheetrock furred out to make the screen flush with the interior walls. The mechanism slides well, but once in awhile makes a large "clunk" about midway that seems like it isn't lined-up straight on the reel-out of the screen side. I emailed Centor for care instructions, as I have a Phantom Screen on another french door that I silicone regularly, and they never replied. The only care instructions I could find were to keep the tracks clean. You see where the blind meets the screen, and there is a full-length magnetic pliable stip attached to make the connection between the two. It is so magnetic (most likely due to surface area of magnetic material, that t it is a STRONG two-handed separation to open the gap. I'm going to run some quality Scotch 32+ electrical tape at intervals to see if I can make separation more manageable. We have "lake" or "rice" flies that hatch at different intervals of the summer, and if they are on your screen or blind, they get crushed-into the material, and need to be removed via tooth-brush, etc. I'd do it again, but I'd check other brands to see if there is a comparable option that is US instead of Overseas-based.

Lenzai, I ventured to Frederick yesterday afternoon. Yep the bunny booth is located near the front of the store. it was one of the last booths I inspected. The transfer ware was gone but the Bavarian forest animal plates were still there. I didn't purchase them but did buy a blue and white ironstone plate for display cabinet. Also bought an embroidered tablecloth at the consignment shop down the street for my daughter.

Dorothy, Thanks for sharing your precious memories too. I bet it was a shock to find yourselves somewhere that you couldn't grow okra! Summertime just isn't summertime without okra growing in the garden. Mary, How blessed we are to be able to look at our gardens and to somehow see in them some long-ago garden that meant so much to us. Jen, Well, all I can think of is that your old house was haunted by a non-gardener. Otherwise, I cannot imagine things not growing for you. Isn't it something how much we're influenced by plants once grown by people we love? We wrap up those precious memories and carry them inside our gardening souls, and when we get a chance, we pull them out and use our memories of those to turn a bare patch of ground, or a front porch with container plants, into a familiar planting area that tugs at our heartstrings. I confess that our home has family influences in the same way. Perhaps because my grandparents' homes were country homes when I was a child, I found myself recreating their country homes when we built our country home here. I had to have a screened porch because I always loved my grandmother's screened porch that she had at their country place when I was a very, very young child. I had to have a white picket fence, a round silver stock tank and a windmill for the same reason, though their windmill actually worked and mine is merely decorative. I had to have a barn, though theirs was a white sheep barn and ours is a red, barn-style garage. I had to have geraniums in our first years here, because she always grew geraniums there. I could go on and on, but it sort of astonishes me how well I remember certain things about that house because I think I was only about 5 or 6 years old when they moved away from the ranch to a little country town. I also didn't deliberately set out to make our country home have similar features to theirs, and yet, it happened. Do you know what I have to remind me of my grandfather's small town house where they lived after they sold the ranch? Grass burs. Common stickers. He was forever walking around the yard, yanking them out of the ground so they couldn't reseed. Now I do the same thing. That's not really a good thing, but it is what it is, and it is a family tradition of sorts that makes me chuckle. When we first moved here, we were so crazy about country living that we just had to sleep with the bedroom windows open so we could listen to all the night sounds. I especially loved to hear the mourning doves cooing early in the day as it reminded me of being at my grandparents' home and hearing the same cooing in the hours before sunrise. I even liked hearing the faraway sound of a train coming down the train tracks just like I would hear at night at their place. After the frogs started having regular conventions and croaking so loudly all night long that we couldn't sleep for all the racket, we gave up sleeping with the windows open. I still get to hear the mourning doves cooing early in the day when I first go outdoors. Strolls down memory lane are so much fun! Dawn