Hi gang, I was amazed when the stinkers moved in under my dock. They truly are mess makers and have no respect for property but I cant help admiring them and their persistence. My dock is very old and time for replacement is near but when the beavers started chewing away at the sides and piling the crap on top of the dock, that was it. This means war! For weeks I would clear out everything they stuffed in and on top of the dock looking for ways to get rid of them. The neighbors suggested the only way to be rid of them was to shoot them. No thanks, not up for that. I tried almost every product available but to no avail. My dear wife came up with the idea of some very smelly deodorant soap. What had I to lose?? I bought some Irish Spring bars and using a cheese grater, shredded them up and filled a couple of small yogurt containers, placed them in the den one night. 2 days later, no beavers, they are gone!!! And I didn't have to shoot them to my relief!! May have also helped that I also took the liberty of taking a leak over the den every night.

I have more seedlings than I have space! A happy problem but still I don't want to compost the extras. :-D Another low-maintenance native with a cool prehistoric look. The plant itself is short, the flower stalk very tall. If you don't have a plant I'm wanting to collect I will consider giveaways if you're willing to drive to the western 'burbs. I've had some difficulty in the past with trades going thru...I don't know if emails get lost in the system or what's going on. So, just posting here isn't going to work. If you want to trade, I need you to click on my GW username, then select 'send me an email,' and contact me that way.

The plant almost surely will grow in New Jersey, as the climate there isn't much different from the plant's native Midwest. But be ware that it can take 3 to 5 years or more to finally put up a flower stalk. Like most tallgrass prairie plants, prairie dock spends its first years growing deep (to 8 ft or more) roots, to deal with the frequent Midwest droughts. So unless you plant a seedling (not just seeds), be patient. Also, the plant requires lots of direct sunlight, preferably at least three-quarters of a day or more of direct sunsine. It's a stunning plant when mature, with giant elephant ear basal leaves and the tall (up to 9-ft) naked stems, topped by a cloud of 2-inch yellow sunflower-like flowers. For a garden "Wow!" plant, nothing beats this one. But again, you must be patient with it, especially from seed.

Mariannese,your pictures do show why I was tempted by this rose; the flowers are indeed beautiful. When in rose season does yours bloom? Melissa, thanks for asking about me. Nothing has changed for me, unfortuneately. I try to get out to do some gardening, but can only go rarely since I'm so disabled that it totally exhausts me. I have to fight off the feeling that I "just can't take any more pain and suffering". I'm worried about the weather as well. We've had some rain, but the trend isn't reassuring at all. Still, I did plant out one potted rose so far, thinking that, if they ever can actually do my hip, I won't be able to do any planting while I'm recovering. One day I'd so like to get some gallicas! It seems so hard to choose amongst them; they all look so beautiful. But I'm not sure that just chill factor is the only thing that would make a rose of a particular family not do well in this climate. Setigeras are native to the American prairies, apparently, and the climate there is just so different from here. I've tried rugosas in my garden, too; only three, because each one just "grew backwards" and wound up dying.I remember in Connemara, in Ireland, seeing them flourishing out in the wild...along with rhododendrons. And there were fuchsias growing along the roadsides, big, tall SHRUBS. I never even knew that fuchsias could get so big; I've only ever seen them as small house plants. Obviously, with all the peat bogs in Ireland, one assumes that the soil there tends to be quite acid, but rain patterens are totally different from Italy, too, as is temperature. It was always comfortable there, temperature-wise, none of these terrible extremes we get here.I loved it there...