I took your advice and split up all my questions. Thanks and thanks for the advice! All of the plants I purchased were already outside or were in an open air nursery. I'm really pretty convinced my compost was the culprit becase as soon as I got some fertilizer in them they perked right up and the yellowing, stunted growth, and dying foliage lasted for a good 3-4 weeks. I feel really dumb that it took me that long to correct. As far as shade/sun half the beds get mornign sun, all of them get midday sun and half of them get afternoon sun. Other wise they are completely shaded in the morning or afternoon. I've been trying to get a hold of some clean straw fro mulching but having a hard time finding any that is def organic and doesn't have weeds and other junk in it. I had been using shredded newspaper for my alpine strawberries but it was really messy so I trashed it. THe peas are shaded form the afternoon sun almost completely so I thought that might work but apparently not. They aren't dying, they're just not growing...or they're growing extremely slowly. Otherwise they look healthy. Idk what to do with them. I really wanted peas and don't know if I can do them as a fall crop in Nebraska. Again, thank you for your reply.

Bob is correct. As an experiment I didn't prune some of my Type 3's several years ago. They only bloomed way up high and I didn't have as many blooms. Now all of mine go back to 12" to 18" The reason I go back to 12-18" is I leave the old stems attached across the bottom of the trellis on the bottom rung. Then I don't have to retrain them across the bottom at the beginning of the growing season to get a wide spread across the trellis. Katie

Jeanne, These new leaves are small, so the vines are a little longer, but there seem to be just one leaf after the other...there must be six new pairs of leaves, and there are only the original 4 vines, no new ones. The roots are visible in the bottom of the pot, but not growing out of it. I have had her for about 6 weeks Jeanne. I thought I should pinch her again, and even if it does encourage growth, I probably won't have to worry about cold since I am in either zone 7b or 8 according to the chart you check. And if you've ever lost a special bloom to a freeze, I'll tell you what we did last spring when everything was at the perfect bloom point, and we had a freeze forecast (and we got it too.) I was whining to DH about losing all my azalea blooms and the amaryllis bulb that had four huge buds on it, and he suggested setting some big fans to blow air on the plants that I was worried about being damaged. He said if there is wind you don't have frost, and the commercial growers do set huge fans up to blow on their crops when frost is forecasts. We tried it and it worked. (He did the work, I provided the moral support). We lost nothing at all to the freeze. And believe me, I heard some sad stories the next day at work. Alabama weather, like most other places can be trying in it's own special way. So, I will pinch Josephine back to three sets of leaves again, and continue to pinch as she grows. And we'll put her in the ground when the roots demand that. Thank you again for your help Jeanne, kay

Yes! Winter is coming soon. It has already been in the 30's at night and we have had frost two nights already - YUCK - not ready for the white stuff yet. My hydrangea has been planted in the same area for a few years now, but I remember when I first got it I watered it more. Now it seems if I water it more than twice a week it gets mad at me! Thanks everyone for the information on my clematis. So I will wait until spring to prune them. Now when I prune them do I cut everything back? I'm not used to having to prune my flowers and am afraid I might chop them too much :). Do I cut all the branches coming off from the main stem or just cut back the main stem? Again, thanks for all the great information!! Kim