In Northern California, I have these perennials mixed in with my roses, penstemone, salvia, scabiosa, yarrow, blanket flowers burgundy, oranges & lemons, perennial geraniums Rozanne, Jolly Bee, and Brookside, verbascum, sidalcea party girl, sun loving foxgloves like excelsior and camelot, English lavender, sea lavender, veronica, creeping lobelia, Japanese iris, Chinese foxglove, and lots of campanula. With the salvia and penstemone you have to be careful to select smaller varieties. Many of the hardy geranium do not like full sun, I have found that Jolly Bee handles the sun better than most. My favorite scabiosa is giant blue, the flowers are Hugh and the butterflies love them. I am somewhat limited since I have such intense full sun, and limited space. I miss my bearded iris, I only have a few due to limited space. Diana

The site has a couple of tall pine and ceder trees behind it so it gets filtered sun to full sun depending on where. My tomatoes are doing great and Ice Bergs look good so far. Yes concrete walls and patio, but I think with the trees it should not get too too hot. This will be my first summer so we will see. The area is on the north side but the beds face south and east. THe previous owners installed eye hooks all around the wall. I have put up garden string for the vines to climb on. I hope it is strong enough. I love the ideas of the geraniums, will have to look for them. Will they be messy?

Butterfly4u, thanks kindly for the link. I read it and it was excellent but didn't specifically answer my question. Did you refer me there to see the answer to my question or for general knowledge?? Thanks so much, Ravi

Yes, your plant appears to be infected with HVX. To Steve_Mass, I'm afraid that the flowering cycle has nothing to do with spreading HVX by the roots when you are digging plants. You will still get HVX on your tools/shovels and you can still move it to other plants so long as they are actively growing. It is best to wait until the fall when the plants are totally dormant. You will still get HVX on your shovel from any dormant plant that has HVX, but since the sap isn't flowing in the healthy plants they won't catch it as easily. Your confusion is from Dr. Lockhart's research that showed that if a hosta with HVX is done flowering and you are cutting SCAPES you won't move it from one scape to another scape. This has nothing to do with moving a plant or cutting roots, crowns, or leaves. So if you cut the scape of a plant that had HVX you will get HVX on your scissors/pruner but then you won't transfer it to a healthy scape that has already finished flowering as there isn't any sap flowing in a finished scape. I hope that helps to clarify things. Wait until the fall, after the plants have gone dormant, and dig it out then. I agree to use a spading fork as you will do a lot less damage, just in case, since Dr. Lockhart's research used too small of sample sizes to draw absolute conclusions.