Mine are singing right now in a wonderful soft rain after many weeks of drought. What I always noticed about soft summer rains was that buds and branches sprouted all over. Hoping this one will give some ideas to my Osmanthus.

Game bird, This is the first year any of us have tried Candy Apple Red since it is the first year Dixondale has offered them, so I am curious to see how they do. Mine are about the same size as yours, but I haven't harvested yet, so they might get a bit larger. Of course, nothing in my garden is a good indicator this year because the 12" of rain that fell in one day at the end of April absolutely halted all apparent growth for 4 weeks or longer, so my entire garden is stunted compared to last year. Still, as long they they taste good, that's what matters. I intend to try them again next year and will hope for a more typical spring growing season so I'll know how they perform under "average" conditions. When Ruth Stout was trying to interest people in mulch gardening, she was sort of out there on her own. I sort of thought of her as "a lone voice crying in the wilderness". Now, of course, she looks positively phophetic During her time, the gardening fad was all the chemicals developed after WWII---chemical pesticides, chemical fertilizers, etc. She persevered and stuck to her guns about soil improvement and mulching, and she was right. I think Jay must have fantastic soil too, plus he works very, very hard. I cannot imagine trying to grow everything he grows in his semi-desert conditions. We are in our 11th year here and the areas that I've been improving and mulching for that time frame do not even look like the soil I started with, and that is despite repeated droughts that have baked the ground to a concrete-hard consistency over and over and over again. Except for the first 2 or 3 years when I amended heavily, all I've done is mulch, mulch, mulch. The difference in the soil is amazing. The formerly red clay that was so hard and sticky that you couldn't even break it up with a fork or mattock is now a milk chocolate brown colored sandy loam and has improved beyond my wildest dreams. Even in the pathways where I routinely mulch, the soil is so different from what we started with. Nowadays, I only improve soil by adding amendments the first year that I break up new ground. After that, it is all just stuff that's layered on top of the ground as mulch and time, Mother Nature and the earthworms do the rest. When we moved here, we had a tremendous issue with Cotton Root Rot, a soil-borne disease that affects thousands of different plants and folks who live here told me I'd never be able to overcome it and grow what I wanted to grow. After the first three years of soil amending, though, the CRR has never reared its ugly head again and I plant what I want in that soil, including many plants that you "cannot" grow if you have CRR. So, I think well-amended and well-enriched soil can overcome almost anything. Like you with the wood chips, I find that no matter how much mulch I put out, pile up and spread around, it is never enough and I always want more. We have to remember that "heat eats compost" and here in OK, it gobbles it up and breaks it down almost more quickly than we can add it. So, mulching is just a great way to keep replenishing what is being used up, and it keeps the soil so much cooler underneath the mulch which helps the plants too. Wheelbarrow time will build muscles and help give you a tan! Of course, the front end loaded was a mulch more efficient way to do it. Jay, I can relate! When the drought of 2005-2006 finally broke and we had a simply luscious summertime late afternoon thunderstorm, Tim and I sat out on the covered patio for 2 or 3 hours and watching it rain and listened to the thunder and watching the lightning. We also watched the frogs come out of "hiding" and play all over the yard and in the puddles. Later on, we spoke to several different neighbors and discovered they all were doing pretty much the same thing....watching the rain and the frogs. We all joked that it doesn't take much to entertain us here in Love County, but I'm telling you, we were so starved for rain at that point that nothing was more important than seeing that rain fall. I hope you get to enjoy every minute of the rain and hope it is falling at your mom's place too. I'm looking forward to hearing about your onion results. Except for being too dry, you've probably had the most "typical" or "average" weather of all of us. I don't know what the rain has done to everyone else's onions, but it almost killed mine. I was just looking at the garden earlier this week and marveling at how good it looks, considering that I thought the flooding rains might kill everything in it. I hope you're out playing or working in the rain, or at least spent some time sitting on the porch with a cup of coffee enjoying that strange phenomenon of liquid falling from the sky! Dawn

There's an article in the Southern Peony Blog with the hybridizer of Singing in the Rain, he tells why he named it what he did. I thought it was interesting but I'll warn you, your peony "Wanted" list might grow after seeing the pics! Don Smith Interview Southern Peony Blog

That is so cool. I am in zone 5b (southern Iowa). I have been getting one Itoh a year and currently have Bartzella, Secret Spendor, First Arrival and Scarlet Heaven. I have been very happy with all of them and don't know that I could pick a favorite, although I really love Secret Spendor. Anyway, I think I am leaning toward buying Singing in the Rain this year unless someone on this forum gives me a reason to change my mind Thank you for your input