Yeah, guess I am kind of the same way about not liking to give to much praise for a newbie plant. It is even sadder if you find the plant that had impressed you so much the first year dead the next, lol. More often than not, it takes me two if not three growing seasons to tell if a plant will be a "winner" here. Second year to make sure it wasn't just a fluke it lived thru the first, and third year to see if it stays as robust and vigorous as it was previous years. Pennisetum alopecuroides 'Burgundy Bunny' is one though. We sold a lot of those at the nursery this year. The small (4in pot) start I brought home early this year was pretty slow growing, but the 2gal ones I planted around the nursery were fantastic and took off fast. Hope I don't jinx anything here, but my own personal fav Alstromeria 'Inca Ice'. The flowers faded some (I do prefer them when first open/darker colored), but overall very nice plant. Bloomed right up until frost. CMK

Thanks for the comments and questions. I'm just a beginner with worms but will try to answer some of rickd's questions based on what I've read. The whole idea of a continuous flow through bin is that food and bedding go in the top and vermicompost comes out the bottom. Eventually (6 months or more from now) I should be able to rake some vermicompost out of the bottom. I haven't had any excess liquid coming out of the bottom of the bin, but if I did it would just pool in the bottom and evaporate. I also haven't had any problems with worms coming out the bottom (I think initially running the newspaper up the sides of the bin for 6-8" helped with this). As for creatures getting into the bottom, that hasn't been a problem so far but I'm concerned about ants and roaches when it gets warmer. I do have my share of fruit flies in the top but nothing unexpected. I'll add a link that lists a number of good discussions of different sized flow-through bins. Also, the links I had in the original post will answer most of your questions. Here is a link that might be useful: List of Flow Through Bin descriptions

My first butterfly bush that succeeded was one I grew from seed. It was a huge one that lasted at least 7 years - I don't have a record of which year I planted it but it was already pretty big in pictures I still have from 2008, so I'm guessing I planted it in 2006 or 2007. It died in the winter of 2013/2014 which was a very nasty winter. When we dug out the stump, it was very large and went very deep. BB in its final summer (2013): stump the next spring: All other butterfly bushes have disappeared quickly! The current surviving one is a dwarf white one (can't find the tag so not sure of the name or exactly when it was planted but I think I planted it in 2014 after losing the big one in the pictures above.) This spring there was only a few live bits at the base. Yesterday we were working in the front garden and I was looking for it to see if it survived. I couldn't find it at first but finally found it - a coneflower had seeded itself directly in front of the BB and was growing vigorously! Once I got rid of the coneflower, the BB is now visible and seems to be growing well. I have decided to treat BB as an expensive annual!! If they survive for a few years, that's a bonus! Last week we planted a dwarf Buzz 'Ivory' one, so the wait is on to see how that one does.... From my experience I think if you want a big one that has a reasonable chance of living a few years, the best option is probably to grow it from seed.

We are in Amarillo and I haven't seen one thing in that article or in most news reports....we aren't on ERCOT up here, thank God. We have EXCEL, as does part of Colorado and numerous other places, We did not lose power...they did have small rolling blackouts one morning here...only about 35 minutes. They told us, so we kind of expected it. Never lost water, either. Amarillo is much closer to Albuquerque and Denver than we are to Austin! Definitely a higher altitude up here on the Caprock! WE get much colder and are used to snow and ice in the winter...we don't especially like it, but are used to it. The elevation here is 3605'; Dallas is 430'..Our kids in the Fort Worth area, as well as friends and family in Austin and Houston fared far worse...even though we were colder. ...my kids' house got down into the '30's with no power for days.... but they had water the whole time...but it was over 50 hours for them! So many people had it far worse, much worse, than they did...older people and those without insulated houses or apartments....burst pipes and frigid living conditions....and it's just ridiculous! Our roads are pretty clear and after our wind chills were -30, it feels like summer today at 53! Get the sunscreen and shorts, lol. We were 8 days below freezing with high temps in the single digits! Our stores haven't had too much shortage of anything but bread and some random things...certainly, we've had paper towels and toilet paper this time! But, not all of Texas is sunny and hot all the time....it can be brutal, both ways, in the Panhandle. Gotta be tough to be here! lol....God bless our ranchers and farmers who had to be out in this and take care of their animals, breaking the ice and feeding. I hope and pray for our fellow Texans who will be dealing with the fallout of this storm for quite a while....