Very pretty Rosemary. My wife would love your yard. I keep telling her that if she wants flowers she's welcome to come out and help me any time she wants.lol My vegetable garden is green, healthy and very productive. But my backyard also has scrap wood scattered in a few places and a few half finished projects I need to get to. In other words, not so pretty. Locally I'm seeing more and more fenced in and shade covered gardens. Rabbits and Roof Rats and birds are the biggest problems here. Birds just love our figs and blueberries. Each year I get a little closer to building cages for them. I'm guessing from the size of your tomato supports they are all Determinate's. There should be a label attached to each when they are sold that says. "Not recommended for Indeterminate Varieties."

Wow!Thanks for sharing,Kasha77. I googled it to learn more & thought this was very interesting! Argiope is no different from many other spiders in this regard, nor is she different in that she often eats her mate after theyÂve copulated. However, Argiope aurantia is utterly unique in that she is the only known spiderÂknown species on the planet whose mate dies spontaneously during intercourse. "Wham, Bam, Now I'll Die, Ma'am" by Silvia Sanides describes the practice: "The orb-weaving male has two sperm-containing pedipalps that it inserts into the female. Upon insertion of the second palp, they invariably undergo a kind of programmed organismic deathÂThe heart rate slows, and 15 minutes later the male is dead" (Sanides 2003). The maleÂs death is also described as an "irreversible seizure" and apparently this takes place to form a kind of "chastity belt" (James 2003). Once the male Kamikaze has inserted the second palp, heÂs stuck, despite what the surrounding males would like. "The other males go berserk, bite into the legs and try to pull him off." Securing himself inside of her not only prevents the future cannibaless from mating with another spider, but also gives the maleÂs sperm sufficient time to fertilize the eggs. However, the female of the species does appreciate his sacrifice. After heÂs dead, she gently wraps him in a body bag of silk and saves him for an afternoon snack (Sanides 2003). Before he gets gobbled up, the male spends some time on the outer edges of the femaleÂs web; he builds a smaller web and can wait days for her to receive him. When sheÂs ready for him, heÂll wave his legs about and "dance" to impress her. However before he begins with his first and final performance, heÂll deposit a bit of sperm on to a scrap of silk and then suck it into his "plunger-like palp" (Conrad 2003). ItÂs likely he does this to alert the female that heÂs not only ready, but not lunch. So males have it rough, but itÂs tough being a lady spider too: sheÂs kind of intimidating, sheÂs got to destroy and rebuild her home every night, she eats and essentially kills her lover and then she never gets to see any of her 1,400 children. She builds these fantastic papery brown egg sacs (usually no more than threeÂsee figure 6) and watches over them until the first frost, when she dies because she canÂt stand the cold. When her babes emerge in the spring, they drift away in the first wind. ThereÂs nothing of her left. SheÂs got no bones to fossilize and her web probably went to pieces in the first winter storm. Theresa

LOL ... I should have included a few pics of the total meltdowns ... just for Karma balance. There's a few of them here. Thinderbolt went from pristine to gone in about a week. Right in front of the ADG is an Island Charm with leaves like netting and if you look closely you'll see that the Lungwort has a few leaf holes. (Not all from slugs) I've used one bottle of Sluggo in two years ... but plenty of ammonia spray. Regal Splendor & a baby Francee are actually the two best preserved still but they're in a spot that the Honeysuckle vine thats overhead makes it difficult to get a good pic. The birds with nests under the overhang have 'fertilized' everything underneath them this summer. That area needs a makeover badly. One of the downsides to hybridizing is the messy look of the scapes not being trimmed back. Hopefully there will be a good bout of Indian Summer before frost and I can make a little extra garden time. Move a few and freshen things. And like you said .... whatever doesn't get done will have to hold til next spring. Curtis/m2wm

Nummy - I guess it was me who bumped it up. I'm fairly new to this forum and I remember one post you had earlier in the season and how lovely your roses were. I hadn't seen anything else of yours and was curious, so I did a search and this one came up, didn't notice it said 2012, I thought I had missed it. Doesn't matter though, I thoroughly enjoyed it. You have really good taste in roses!