Dry rootballs are often the result of textural differences between the soilless potting medium or claylike field soil the plants came from the nursery in and the soil on the new site. If the rest of the bed was moist with the heucheras only being dry then it was something like that - something involving the heucheras specifically - and not the overall conditions. This should have been apparent when these were dug and pulled apart(?) but heucheras specifically are prone to weevil larvae gnawing the roots off and leaving a sort of nearly rootless husk sitting on top of the ground, unable to keep itself turgid without diligent watering - and maybe not even then. The same thing is common here with primroses.

Game bird, This is the first year any of us have tried Candy Apple Red since it is the first year Dixondale has offered them, so I am curious to see how they do. Mine are about the same size as yours, but I haven't harvested yet, so they might get a bit larger. Of course, nothing in my garden is a good indicator this year because the 12" of rain that fell in one day at the end of April absolutely halted all apparent growth for 4 weeks or longer, so my entire garden is stunted compared to last year. Still, as long they they taste good, that's what matters. I intend to try them again next year and will hope for a more typical spring growing season so I'll know how they perform under "average" conditions. When Ruth Stout was trying to interest people in mulch gardening, she was sort of out there on her own. I sort of thought of her as "a lone voice crying in the wilderness". Now, of course, she looks positively phophetic During her time, the gardening fad was all the chemicals developed after WWII---chemical pesticides, chemical fertilizers, etc. She persevered and stuck to her guns about soil improvement and mulching, and she was right. I think Jay must have fantastic soil too, plus he works very, very hard. I cannot imagine trying to grow everything he grows in his semi-desert conditions. We are in our 11th year here and the areas that I've been improving and mulching for that time frame do not even look like the soil I started with, and that is despite repeated droughts that have baked the ground to a concrete-hard consistency over and over and over again. Except for the first 2 or 3 years when I amended heavily, all I've done is mulch, mulch, mulch. The difference in the soil is amazing. The formerly red clay that was so hard and sticky that you couldn't even break it up with a fork or mattock is now a milk chocolate brown colored sandy loam and has improved beyond my wildest dreams. Even in the pathways where I routinely mulch, the soil is so different from what we started with. Nowadays, I only improve soil by adding amendments the first year that I break up new ground. After that, it is all just stuff that's layered on top of the ground as mulch and time, Mother Nature and the earthworms do the rest. When we moved here, we had a tremendous issue with Cotton Root Rot, a soil-borne disease that affects thousands of different plants and folks who live here told me I'd never be able to overcome it and grow what I wanted to grow. After the first three years of soil amending, though, the CRR has never reared its ugly head again and I plant what I want in that soil, including many plants that you "cannot" grow if you have CRR. So, I think well-amended and well-enriched soil can overcome almost anything. Like you with the wood chips, I find that no matter how much mulch I put out, pile up and spread around, it is never enough and I always want more. We have to remember that "heat eats compost" and here in OK, it gobbles it up and breaks it down almost more quickly than we can add it. So, mulching is just a great way to keep replenishing what is being used up, and it keeps the soil so much cooler underneath the mulch which helps the plants too. Wheelbarrow time will build muscles and help give you a tan! Of course, the front end loaded was a mulch more efficient way to do it. Jay, I can relate! When the drought of 2005-2006 finally broke and we had a simply luscious summertime late afternoon thunderstorm, Tim and I sat out on the covered patio for 2 or 3 hours and watching it rain and listened to the thunder and watching the lightning. We also watched the frogs come out of "hiding" and play all over the yard and in the puddles. Later on, we spoke to several different neighbors and discovered they all were doing pretty much the same thing....watching the rain and the frogs. We all joked that it doesn't take much to entertain us here in Love County, but I'm telling you, we were so starved for rain at that point that nothing was more important than seeing that rain fall. I hope you get to enjoy every minute of the rain and hope it is falling at your mom's place too. I'm looking forward to hearing about your onion results. Except for being too dry, you've probably had the most "typical" or "average" weather of all of us. I don't know what the rain has done to everyone else's onions, but it almost killed mine. I was just looking at the garden earlier this week and marveling at how good it looks, considering that I thought the flooding rains might kill everything in it. I hope you're out playing or working in the rain, or at least spent some time sitting on the porch with a cup of coffee enjoying that strange phenomenon of liquid falling from the sky! Dawn

As I matter of fact I do wear jewelry differently at my 2 homes! I can't stand cold metal touching me so I don't wear necklaces in the winter (from Nov to about March) at my regular home. And I wear one particular pair of earring almost all winter because they dangle but not long enough to touch my skin. Some of the longer ones end up touching my neck from my scarves & bulky coat so I avoid those. It's crazy but cold metal just sends a chill right through me and makes me feel colder. Since it's warmer in HHI, I do wear necklaces & earrings and even bracelets. I usually bring a few down with me so that I can have some variety. One necklace at a time, if it's bold than the earrings are smaller. One bracelet at a time and it depends on my sleeve length. In both places, I occasionally wear rings when I remember them. Your comments about gold & blue reminds me that I have an 18k gold ring with a lapis lazuli stone. I should dig that out and start wearing it again.

I agree, defrost - I was forgetting that my need to get into the garden in the rain, is not into the vegetable garden. And I have raised beds as well, which I think makes it different. I work with the concept that walking on wet soil compacts it anyway, so I try not to do that, but I do have a lot of pathways and stepping stones that allow me access even on a day when it's raining lightly. I also don't like to touch foliage when it's wet. But I seem to get a lot of weather that is damp and cloudy but not exactly wet. I always like to get out as soon as the ground is workable to divide perennials and transplant, but - at least half of my springs, it doesn't work out that way. I ended up just transplanting all my houseplants yesterday, which were overdue, and getting some cleaning done around the house yesterday - and got a nap too. [g]. My list has a lot on it still. We usually go to a few plant sales in May and I now have a lot of pots to get in the ground. The vegetable garden is just showing bean seeds sprouting. Peas are barely growing much, no flowers yet. I just put tomatoes and peppers, summer squash and cuke transplants in the ground last week and they're just sitting there doing nothing. Three days in the 80s this week, should change that. Lettuce transplants are slow growing. I had this issue last season, a lot of cloudy weather early that slowed down growth.