You gals just have me cracking up reading this! I love the angels/fairies Karen is finding for all of us. Lord knows I sure can use one too since the old woman comes to visit here quite frequently too. She went off and left my garage door open the other day, and then this morning she even left the water running in the sink after brushing her teeth! I just don't know how to deal with her, so hopefully my angel/fairy will help! Nmgirl had me drooling over all those wonderful desserts she can make. Boy, talk about listing your qualifications. How could anyone say no to all that???? So glad you found an angel/fairy for her too. Susie, why do you get to hold the $$$$ and the chocolate too gal? And you thought no one would notice, huh? LOL Luvs

I haven't seen any mention of the tall white trumpet lilies. I suggest Lilium trumpet hybrid 'Emerald Angel' which is white with a green tint. It grows 3-5 ft and blooms in July. The trumpet lilies perfume the whole garden when they bloom. I have always been extremely fond of Datura. They are nocturnal, but they don't close up at the first ray of dawn. Some are extremely fragrant. There are several different species and cultivars to choose from. Colors range from pure white to cream and pale yellow. There are lavenders and whites with purple edges and throats. They have large, upfacing, trumpet shaped flowers. They are a herbaceous perennial in warmer climates and a reseeding annual in the colder zones. I liked the suggestion of Veronicastrum virginicum (culvers root). The tall white flower spikes seem to glow in the moonlight. Same goes for Aruncus dioicus (goats beard).

OMG! No phone! That's my connection to the rest of the world! I can stay in touch while I weed,clean or doing laundry. I can't imagine, what happens if there's an emergency? I would be terrified! I have the option to answer or not so it doesn't bother me that it rings too much! Annie, your killing me! I love those pics. I keep going back and looking at them. I thought I posted a good box, I guess not.LOL Tracy, where did you go???? Fran, it's getting close for your turn:]

Hi everyone, Well, as promised, here I am posting about what in the world I've been doing all summer while traveling to & fro Wisconsin. As some of you already know, I work with fish-eating birds: cormorants, pelicans, herons, egrets, gulls, wood storks, etc. My husband and I have been working in Wisconsin for the past 3 years, but we also regularly work in Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas, Michigan, Ontario, and a few other places. Yes, we are a husband + wife team, working together out of the same office. Many people are surprised that we work together, but it is great. We make a fantastic team, and are often at our best under challenging field conditions. Great minds think alike, and being dear friends & in love sure helps too. (ok, enough with the mushy stuff). So now for a few photos from the vegetation surveys we did this month. Background: We are working on remote islands in Lake Michigan, around the Door Co. Peninsula area. All the islands have nesting double-crested cormorants and herring gulls. Some also have nesting Am. white pelicans and Canada geese. Back in April, we put up some 6 ft x 6 ft pens (we call them exclosures) to exclude the cormorants because they damage vegetation with their nesting activities (too much POOP!). So then we went back in August to catalog everything that grew in the pens, by plant species, and weighed it to also determine biomass. That meant breaking out the field guides, studying up on botany and the flora of Wisconsin, and bringing the plant presses for species we couldn't identify on the island. We compareed the exclosure plots to some "control" plots, which had nothing but 4 wooden stakes at the corners. We had 45 plots to do on 3 islands, plus another 3 islands down by the city of Green Bay that we did simple vegetation surveys on (no pens). It was alot of work, but very interesting. The bottom line: there are lots of nonnative species on those islands, like motherwort, catnip, pigweed, common mallow, stinging nettle and sow thistle. The native vegetation was primarily lambsquarter and smartweed species. Almost done clipping this 1-meter plot: Looking for small plants beneath the lambsquarter The finished, sampled 1-meter subplot Who would even know what this was?!?! I saved seeds to winter sow and see if I can't figure it out. The very last veg plot to measure. You can tell, because we look so happy! A friend found crawling across the plant press The stinging nettle I hacked through to make us a nice trail to get to the center of the island. At least its not poison ivy! Ok, that's all for now. Have a great evening. Katie (heh - I've been working on this post for days!)