Susan, I didn't take my allergy medicine last night, but I sure did remember to take it this morning! Ilene, I've been losing baby plums to every hard wind for about 2 weeks now. The tree in the more exposed location has just about lost them all, and the more protected one has lost about half. Until today, though, I hadn't had any peaches blow off. Well, now the peaches are coming down too. (sigh) Where were these winds last year when the trees were terribly overloaded and I had to hand-thin for days and days and days? I watered my seedlings twice, also, and some of them still had some winburn on the leaf tips and edges, so today I moved them to a part of the yard that is a tiny bit more sheltered. Carol, I've been keeping one eye on the skies and one ear on the weather radio, although I think that if anything happens here in far southcentral OK, it won't be until evening. Out local TV metereologist doesn't seem to think we have a really big chance here--maybe 20%? That's too bad--we could sure use some rain to rehydrate all the dry, wind-beaten plants. I have the water hose turned on now, running very slowly, to create a wildlife drinking puddle or two for the birds, turtles, butterflies, etc. Usually in the spring we have enough rain that there's little puddles here and there, but this wind and the lack of recent rain has dried them up. The butterflies love the mud puddles. And, I guess these winds are fueling some fires. I heard one of the western Love County VFDs paged out to go help with a fire west of Ringling in Jefferson County. I guess it is going to be one of those days. Y'all, I'm watching the noon news and he says the storms will likely stay north of us. And, by the way, our wind is gusting to 30 m.p.h., which is not quite as strong as yesterday's winds. I'm ready for the wind to stop blowing, but I don't think it is ging to stop any time soon. Dawn

Thank you, Jim, for the pics. of your mountain view, very pretty. Your Mr. Lincoln has so many blooms, so the blood meal & Brewer's Yeast works very well. We are lucky to be 73 degree today. Will pick another bouquet of Heirloom, W.S. 2000, and Carding Mill (has 10 buds/blooms). So glad that I bought 4 roses at $17 each (free shipping) from Heirloom ... just learned that they raise the price to $25 each per band !! Bolero rose is worth every cent... I wish I can find roses like that, but in different color besides white. Thank you, Jim, for the article on Rose Midge. I had minor Rose Midge on Golden Celebration early spring ... that's the only spring that I didn't dump new soil, or grass clippings. I'm going to rake leaves and dump around Golden Celebration. Cornell University stated that either too wet (flooding) or too dry will prevent midge-larvae from hatching. When I checked on rose-midge, folks in Rose forum reported that newspaper didn't work. Personally I think that spreading newspaper or plastic will hurt roses, since that block out water. I like eHow approach of dumping soil, or any organic material before the ground freeze ... that way eggs can't hatch in spring. Below is Pat Austin, blooms well in partial shade. It gets 3 hours of sun now, since my tall house shadows it during late fall. Pat blooms well, but it gets too tall in partial shade. In full sun it's shorter ... I gave that second Pat away, since it's a water-hog in full-sun. This post was edited by Strawberryhill on Mon, Oct 27, 14 at 10:33

Pip The New Zealand lemonade tree yo gave me is doing well. There is physically not enough room in our house for even one citrus tree and all of them will go in ground permanently this spring. My greenhouse setup can go all winter without heat as long as the temps stay above 0 F. I used low-E double glass sealed window and top coated it with clear bubble wrap. It holds heat much better on clear nights and doesn't cook the plants on surprise 70 F sunny days. It appears to be the way to go in GH's 6b Steve

RED SLEEVED WARRIOR - hasn't been too good this year. Lack of scapes, buds and definitely is falling behind BACK TO THE FUCHSIA - still going. CAPACITY FOR WONDER - Nice trio today LIGHT OF THE WORLD - it has had numerous flushes of blooms opening. This was taken this morning. BERMA ABERCROMBIE - still going SCIENCE OF MIND - I think it is finally winding down. FIRE ON THE MOUNTAIN - this morning another round of open blooms. I've decided to divide it this year. OH GREAT ONE - it has shaped up after the first couple of openings and now it is almost done. I think I should stop here. I still have a couple more that haven't opened yet and one that I was waiting for in the holding bed area that the deer nipped off some of the buds. We have a doe with her fawn hanging around so I assume it was them that decided to dine on my daylilies in those beds. Julia