Well, your responses certainly made me realize how lucky I am, all things considered. The weather's bizarre all over for sure. Niels, we sure could have used some of your cool weather last summer--as I'm sure you would have appreciated a dose of our blazing heat of August and September. As for the cold spell in February: losing a hundred roses!! here all that happened was that the plants' leaves turned brown. You have my sympathies, and my respect for keeping right on with the business of gardening. Between your health and the weather it sounds like you had an awful year, and I hope this start of a new flowering season will be the beginning of a much better time for you. Ingrid, fungal diseases right at the height of the flowering season are very disappointing, I know. I think it will pass when the weather gets back to normal. The only time I ever had rust in my garden was one year during a five week rainy spell in May and June, a period when the garden is normally going dry for the summer. 'Zephirine Drouhin' got a tremendous case of rust, defoliated, and then leafed out again and has been perfectly healthy ever since. Your garden will recover too. Ann, I know. Nice to know that drought can bring some advantages with it, isn't it? This may be another side benefit of not irrigating as well. The hail doesn't look like it did too much damage, thank goodness; last year we have a memorable hailstorm in June that destroyed our entire fruit crop. A lot of my roses have a somewhat pallid look that suggests they would appreciate some sun. We're supposed to have a few days of fair warm weather ahead of us, and I'm hopeful they'll bring the garden to a peak of smiling perfection coming on top of all the rain. Also I'm going to ask my husband to cut some of the lower branches off the willow that's growing in the middle of the shade garden, as I think it's getting out of hand. Strawberry, My allergy seem to be purely to pollen: it begins every spring and runs on through early summer. It is nice to know what you're allergic to, as you figured out in your case, so that you can avoid it. Though it's not simply allergy/no allergy. I never had regular seasonal allergy until I came to live in Italy, but here I get it dependably every year. Why? I do wonder if the heavy air pollution in this part of the world is part of the problem (the Po Valley has some of the worst air in Europe, and we live on the edge of it, fortunately at a somewhat higher elevation). I like fragrance in peonies too, though will do without it in classes where it's just not found. For some years now I've been lusting after peonies. I began dividing mature clumps a couple seasons ago, so finding out I could propagate them, and I was told of an inexpensive source last year for herbaceous lactiflora peonies and made a large order. Peonies are satisfying because you plant them and basically forget them, and they just get better every year, forever. Great plants. Seil, Jeri, Florence, Weird weather, indeed! I hope this year stays a little closer to what I'm accustomed to think of as normal. Melissa

Three days before the last swap I had at my house I was out picking up some name badges for the swap! As I was heading back home, crossing over I-25 at 120th, there was close to a foot of hail on the road---seriously! There was lots of Pea Soup in the gutters when I (finally) got on Washington, but it didn't look "quite so bad" as I got toward home! Didn't need to be "that" bad! I had almost 400 plants for that swap, and they were ALL out sitting on the grass! I moved them up onto my little deck where they'd be out of any additional rain, and left them sit the next day to "dry out a little" while I did other stuff I needed to get done for the swap. The day before the swap I spent most of the day trying to "clean them up" and see what could be salvaged. Most of them, from my point of view, "would be ok," but I wasn't sure I was going to be able to convince anybody at the swap that!!! Got two hours sleep that nite--and had 40 people over the next day! I'm still here! It's SPRING, Zach! This is not the time to give up--even if you're not having fun right now! And when I made that comment I was referring to the know-it-all posters on some of the forums--not the plant catastrophes that we inevitably have every year. NEVER give up on the plants! Never, ever! This is the place to come when you WANT to give up with the plants. This is the place with the "shoulder to cry on!" We ALL hear you when it comes to hail. With your tomatoes, if there's anything besides just "stems" left, chances are they'll come back for you--and with tomatoes, even it they're just stems, I wouldn't give up on them yet. If most/all of the foliage is gone, be sure you leave them dry out most of the way before watering again--with no foliage they'll be using very little water. With the peppers, I don't know, but somebody else might have some advice. (And last year at the swap there were more tomatoes and other veggies than there were people to take them home! Hang in there!) I wondered about you all down "that way!" I checked radar a few times and it looked like there was some pretty nasty stuff around down there. The slugs! They are MADDENING! Lettuce grows fast! Seed some more, and be liberal with the slug bait. When I was at Paulino's we'd find huge banana slugs between the pots in the flats sometimes, and I absolutely delighted in flinging them in the big koi pond that was in the perennial area--and watching them get GOBBLED DOWN! Sheer joy! We understand--we really do, Skybird

My struggling plant is a member of the same family group as my best-looking, favorite plant, a Hoya. In 2012, I purchased a cutting of the ever-popular Hoya kerrii, a variegated version. While it did root and grow, it's been agonizingly slow and some of the older leaves just looked old and tired and pathetic. I've tried every combination of light, exposure, humidity, watering regimen, fertilizers, etc,, all to no avail; it just looked kind of sad. While I have moved most of my plants into a more gritty mix, I've been somewhat afraid to move this one until I really get a better handle on hitting its happiness factor. I've been careful to not overwater the potting mix, which is mixed heavily on the perlite side. I've never seen parasites on it, but I finally broke down and just sprayed it with Bayer systemic insecticide (outside, of course). I put it out on my covered front porch for the summer and have just been ignoring it. I peeked at it the other day and it's actually grown a few new leaves, so things might be looking up for that plant, but it's not beautiful, not yet (and after three years, it really should look better than this, I feel). I took cuttings of it but had no luck rooting it and it really can't spare too many leaves at this point. I love this type of hoya and I know how "easy" they are supposed to be, but this one is a toughie for me. Still working on it. . . .

Thanks for the feedback. We are going to have another cool night tonight and slightly warmer tomorrow. This is ok with me. Our Air Conditioning isn't in yet, and we may be getting ductless whole house put in if the estimate isn't too bad. Here's another picture of that seedling. Never did open the whole way.