Di, stop judging your adequacy as a person by your productivity, dammit! Just be. You're not in denial. Nobody is going to think you're "all better now" just because you're working in the garden, and any guilt you have belongs in the bottom of your compost heap where it can rot into something better. Easier said than done I know. But I do wish you'd be less harsh on yourself. Rant over. You are as beautiful as you are loved, and I hope that the nurturing of life around you helps you to continue to heal. You'll never turn off the grief like a switch... it's just a new part of you... As for gardening activities, I'm going a bit frantic myself. Mostly because spring and early summer are make-it-or-break-it times for those of us in colder climes and there are certain things that just need to be done. But they mostly got done. My fingerprint is now clearly visible on our yard. It has come a long way from the 30-some nasty spirea, 5 unkempt and gianormous pontentilla, and swaths of rock and landscape cloth that greeted me when we moved in. The perennials I planted are really coming into their own, and I beam with pride when people stop to ask me about plants or for advice in their own gardens. I almost typed that I had hardly planted anything at all this season... and then I realized that I've put at least 500 individual plants into the dirt, and have no clue how many seeds I've planted. I suppose that's "hardly anything at all" compared to what I've been doing the last few years though... I'll always have a bit of grass because the dogs (ours and the neighbors who come over daily to play) need space to poop and romp, but I'm using Steve's love affair with his ridiculously oversized riding mower to justify a nearly constant expansion of my planting beds. As much as I dislike that mower, I owe many a bed to its lousy cornering capability! ;o) I am well pleased with last year's rain barrel project, and would heartily recommend them to anyone who is struggling with feast and famine rains. I have a total of 220 gallons of capacity, and a half an hour's worth of rain will fill my barrels to the brim. The drip irrigation system I built for them last year made watering a couple beds completely effortless. I can't say enough nice things about them and am grateful to Leaveswave for the guidance. Of course my neighbor is laughing her butt off at me for my planting idiosyncrasies. I have a bad habit of "not wasting" seedlings. Who is she to say that 45 hot pepper plants is too many (for a woman with a low tolerance for "hot")? I think I showed restraint by not planting all 150 that I started! (She's also laughing because my labels washed off when I was hardening the plants off and I have both "Bulgarian Carrot" peppers and "Tequila Sunrise" peppers... they look nearly identical and now I don't know what's where, so I'll be playing Capsicum Roulette come harvest time!) And I "only" planted sixteen eggplants, ten tomatoes, and who-knows-how-many beans, peas, cukes, zucchini, cauliflower, broccoli, lettuces, spinach, radishes, and chard... I planted so much in my raised and expanded beds this year that I decided herbs can grow just fine in the flower beds. I'm not sure if that's a form of denial, or a nod to French Potagers... (I'll probably claim the latter, but know secretly it's due to my lack of horticultural restraint.) I have several plants each of rosemary, thyme, sweet marjoram, basil, parsley, oregano, cilantro, dill, and mint (the mint lives in strictly-policed holeless, sunken pots). But I hardly grow any vegetables and herbs at all. I'm mostly a flower gardener... (sigh... restraint is for sissies...)

I will offer a contrary opinion. I always wait until the newly potted bare roots have had the first flush of blooms before transplanting. That length of time has proved to enable the roots to grow enough to hold the potting medium together when the plant is removed from the pot. Doing it that way lets you turn the pot upside down and a helper can just lift off the pot and then you just place the plant in the hole. (green side up) :>) Otherwise, if you don't wait for enough feeder roots to hold the potting medium together, you have to depend on placing the potted plant in the hole and removing the pot in chunks. I am a failure with that method. Regards, Charles

Will - No way am I offended that you refer to a plant with a name I don't think is correct, and you should only change your plant names if you! think it is the right thing to do, not because of anything I have said. Dave - not sure what you mean by amateur collectors, guys like yourself and Will both have a garden full of conifers, are members of the ACS, and participate on this conifer forum on a regular basis, sounds like your pretty true collectors to me and not just the average Joe who likes to have the odd conifer in his garden who you could well imagine not giving a fig as to the correct name of his plants. Yes I'm sure you are correct that there are mix ups all over the place, you only have to look at a Czech, German, or Polish collectors list to see many conifer names from the US incorrectly written. of course these things happen, even I get the occasional name wrong :0) I know it must seem tedious, but it is, and should be important to all who have a passion for conifers to try and ensure we are all abiding by the correct plant names, there is already far too much confusion as it is. You don't have to go running out into the yard to change your name tags every time someone says a particular name you're using is wrong, if possible you need to check out the info you are given is correct. I take notes and go through my collection list and tags about once a year and then make any necessary corrections, certainly saves a lot of hassle. Cheers, Stephen.

When we bought the house in 1987 that hill had nothing but dirt and weeks on it, even though the house was built in 1974. We didn't have the money to even buy ivy, let alone any other kind of plant. We found a guy trimming his ivy and he let us gather it up. We put it in a trash can with water and some kind of rooting stuff, then planted it on that slope buy poking holes in the ground with screwdrivers and sticking the cuttings in. And I was about 7 months pregnant at the time! There were quite a few yards in the neighborhood with ivy and of course we didn't think about it that much at the time. We needed an inexpensive solution to the ugly slope. I remember our neighbors at the time telling us how much better it looked. Which it did, and still does.