What kind of juried competitions will there be, and are you entering anything? Sounds like a good reason for a......FIELD TRIP!!!! The botanical gardens are easy to get to and the admission is free, by the way.

Ooooh, lucky you, Gardenweed! That 'Hot Papaya' looks beautiful, and is on my wishlist too. Thank you for the seed offer, I will send you an email to get your mailing address for the SASE. The only cool colors in my garden are in the herb bed, because it seems that most herbs have lavender, white, or pale pink flowers, and I absolutely love having fresh herbs all summer, and drying my own to use all winter! I just finished harvesting thyme, and there's oregano in the dehydrator right now. My perennial beds are pretty much entirely red, orange, and yellow. A couple of peachy pinks have snuck in, and a few things that were supposed to be red, but turned out dark pink (like my Dianthus, LOL), and some really dark purple/burgundy/black things. I'm just drawn to bright, cheerful colors though, and haven't intentionally planted any pink, purple, or blue. When we first moved into this house, and it had nothing but a dirt yard, I carefully selected and purchased plants that were red, yellow or orange, but the red Bee Balm bloomed lavender, the Hibiscus syriacus 'Freedom' that was supposed to be red, turned out to be purple, the Sedum 'Autumn Joy' was actually 'Neon', which is bright pink, LOL. I gradually gave those things away and replaced them with things more suited to the color palette I have selected, but some things, like the Verbascum 'Southern Charm' blended well enough that I let them stay : ) You could say I follow a "gardening for dummies' plan. If I keep the color palette small and simple, than I don't have to worry as much about where it gets planted, because it should work just about anywhere in the garden.

That sounds just fine for camellias, hydrangeas, azaleas and rhododendrons! Our climate is more extreme so watering camellias is a must. I learned the hard way to pay attention to that even during winter: I had to stop the automatic sprinkler once because of cold freezing temperatures but forgot to restart it. Many weeks later, I saw one camellia's leaves browning and noticed the dry soil so I reactivated the automatic sprinkler. It is a little bit of an inconvenience to have to keep doing that on-off business based on the temperatures during winter. I may have to inquire if commercial sprinkler vendors can add some equipment to existing units that turns the sprinkler 'off' and back 'on' based on outside temperatures. But if it is expensive, I may have to wait until it breaks down and has to be replaced. Our winters are rather mild too. We may have a total of one inch of snow in all of winter but ice & sleet are more common. Jan-Feb are the coldest months and Feb brings all kinds of weird precipitation. It seems to be the time when spring weather is about to arrive.... but winter refuses to leave so spring & winter "fight it out" and finally winter gives up by the end of February or early March. We are used to somewhat stable but cold temperatures during the winter months. But I have noticed that once temperatures get above the averages, say in the 70s then that is a harbinger of cold temperatures soon or in a few more days. Your Friday may start in the upper 70s (F) and then become snowy and bitter cold by 5pm. This up and down is not good for most plants, including camellias, and especially those camellias that bloom in Jan-Feb as it can make them bloom early, stop blooming when the cold temperatures arrive and continue blooming a month or two afterwards. Or worse, it could flat out kill all the blooms although that rarely happens. I had one that bloomed early in Jan, stopped blooming and resumed in March. Oh well. The dry season in summer is the problem and it requires monitoring the shrubs a lot. Especially last summer... the worst in 50 years or more. The drought continues and is expected to last one more full season although we have been blessed by weekly rains since September... and they continue. Water levels at lakes were we get the water from have not fully recovered yet though.

Thanks for the feed back! And there's no secret.lol.I took the cuttings on 11-12, I usually like the fresh red springtime growth for cuttings they seem to root much faster(usually 7-14 days) than cuttings taken in November.But these took almost three weeks to root enough to transplant (12-3). Also I don't like cutting on my plants that late in the year but I have much more time in the winter to spend on them. That way by spring they are ground or 5 gallon bucket ready so I'm not watering everyday or even twice a day in the hot summer. I'm a newbie too so any help or "secrets" would be of help.