OKAY, I'm officially updating my list based on this year's bloomerificness. 1. MIKE LONGO - this was so So gorgeous, green throat, great form, lots of blooms, overwintered for me in a fabric container outside 2. Marietta Polkdot- lots of blooms, foliage is actually attractive, and gave me some interesting colors because of heat (lost its polka-dots, but was still lovely) 3. Last Snowflake. The color is just fantastic 4. New Tangerine Twist 5. Viola Francois (need to see how this overwinters) Runners Up: Westbourne Miss Personality , Symphony of Fire, Marseilles Watercolor

Barbara, nice seeing you there. I bought a bunch of plants. I was going to come by later but had a little tragedy in the pet family. My dog had a heart attack Saturday and died Sunday. Obituary from my wife cindy potts to Tracy, Kim, Claire, Joni, Joyce, panda78413, James, me, Brenae, Patty, sharon, Pat, Christopher, Renee show details 2:16 pm (8 hours ago) Today, October 7,2007 is a very sad day in the Potts family. Today we lost our beloved Tex. He died this morning. Tex had heart worms for the past year. Tex is survived by his wife Jasmine, his loving brother Rex and sister-in-law Mollie. He was the father of 13, but only three were living with him, they are LT, Tiger and Snapper. We will all miss him, he was our joy. He is the reason that we are blessed with all our other "kids with tails." Love to all, The Potts I wish you could clone dogs like brugs. I do not imagine there is another on this earth like him. I bred him 4 times hoping for another. No luck, just dogs. He was part human and had the Iq of an Einstein. With no fear. I will miss him dearly. Roses I can kill them faster than anyone. They hate my soil. I talked with Linda and a neighbor of yours has a type of plant I am after. I need to find out the name. It is growing at green acres next to the herb area. Email me and I will give you my phone number again. I am sorry I missed coming by your garden home in Rockport, it is special. It was nice to see you and Ruth and to meet Linda. Gardeners are special people. Jim

One way to help understand soil additive is to compare it to food. There is the food in the pantry which is valuable food but until something is done to it you cannot eat it. Most soil additives fall in that class including oyster shell and granite. Then there is the food on the table. It is prepared and ready to eat but if you don't like a particular food or you are not hungry you may not eat it. My daughter-in-law will not eat chocolate. You can set it out be she will always tell you no. Most soil tests test what is on the table, the nutrients that are water soluble and easily measured with chemicals. Just because the nitrogen is there does not mean the plants can use it or will consume it. It may be ammonium nitrate and that particular plant needs a nitrite form of nitrogen. So a soil test can tell you that you have plenty of nitrogen when you don't have usable nitrogen or the test will show insufficient nitrogen when your soil is loaded with nitrogen rich bacteria. That is the problem with soil tests. They tell you what is on the table but they don't tell you what is in the pantry or what should be on the table i.e. what the plants can eat. Finally you are what you eat. A leaf assay test will tell you what is in the leaf, what the plant is actually eating and/or what the plant should be getting but that it does not have enough of. Calcium, rock phosphate, granite will not show up in most soil tests but if fungi is there the fungi has the enzymes to break down the minerals and transport them via their hyphae to the root zone of the plants. If inorganic fertilizers have killed the bacteria and fungi then there may be everything you need in the pantry but the plants will not get it and the tests will not measure it. For most people the best way to handle soil is to give the plants a good humus rich friable soil to sink their roots in and then very little if any fertilizer. Thinks like cotton seed meal, rock phosphate, bone meal, and so forth may be excellent but either not available to the plants or not necessary and most tests won't show you anyway so learn to watch the vigor and health of the foliage. A trained eye can tell you as much as most tests. BTW I will be in Orlando October 25 - 28, next month for the fall board meeting and in 2009 for the National Convention. I usually stay with Dan Hansen while I'm in Orlando Gary

Prince Albert I use to be heavy into dayliles, but lost them all because of daylily rust. Be careful of where you buy them. I had a garden full of rust free dayliles, then I received 3 plants from a diffrent company in Florida, that is how I bought it in. I lost all my plants. I waited 2 years, replaced all the soil, and just started collecting again this past Oct. Some of the plants did not get planted until February, becasue of my broken hip, I almost lost them, since my husband did not water the potted plants. I have bought 4 new hibiscus, 2 from the farmers market and 2 from Johnson Nursery. All my others are just coming back, they did not freeze, but they are about 1/4 of what they were last year, but the season is still early. Barbra