I would love to have a solomon's seal for my woodland garden. I have some lamiums (I can send pix of the foliage but they are not in bloom): 1. yellow flowering that is a little invasive so you'd want to be careful. I brought it with me from WA State where I had planted it under mature big-leaf maples and nothing else could compete with the roots. About 10 yrs later I stopped back at that property which I had sold to a family member. The lamium escaped the tree zone & had taken over acres of nearby swamp. Here is CO the dryness keeps it a little more manageable. Leaves are green edge & center with silver between. 2. Less invasive is a pink flowering variety. Leaves are green with silver center. 3. A new variety that I have in a pot this year is light purple or lavender flowering. Leaves are mostly silver with green edge. Still small so I don't have it on my trade list. I could divide one start out. Or look at my trade list to see if something tempts you. Here is a link that might be useful: berrytea4me trade lists

I am in line with Chris. Easiest in early spring, or in say, September, when you're willing to cut them down and say good-bye to them for the rest of the season. I have Polygonatum commutatum, the tall, all-green variety. It's incredibly vigorous (esp. in very moist soil!). I believe it would be tough to kill this plant! :) I dug a clump a couple of weeks ago and the greatest danger was breaking the lovely, arching stems. So, if you want to keep the stems wait until fall or be prepared to be really careful. Either way, the rhizomes won't care. Fabulous plant! one of my favorites.

Wow! What a great answer, Jan! Totally thorough, not a question left unaddressed. The bulk of this project is an area along a ditch. It was cut away by the city in an effort to improve drainage (which it did not) and they left a previously nice grassy slope in ragged, jagged ruin. Many, many dandelions and tansy and yucky, stinky valerian have moved in. It's not really my property, it's in the alley easement (there is no alley), so I can't do anything about this other than pretty it up. The soil is not great but adequate for what I plan to do, which is move a lot of wildflowers which I've raised from seed (asters, goldenrod, Culver's root, marshmallow, butterfly weed, nemerosa sage) and rescued from a developer's bulldozer (joe pye, wild rose, some kind of wild bluebell-looking thing)--they're all in their third summer and increasing nicely--and divide some large stands of beebalm & yarrow that I have been raising for this express purpose. I'll dig out a dandelion and plunk in a clump of something better and so on, and leave the grass intact in between as much as possible to keep the bank stabilized--besides, I like the grass. : ) There are also some nice things out there which I'll leave alone, like chamomile and daisy, and forget-me-nots at the bottom of the ditch. There are wetter and drier areas and I'll pay attention to that when I do the moves. And youbetcha, I will make these divisions bigger rather than smaller, and keep as much of a rootball as possible. I'll also amend the soil with some compost where needed, and thank you for the pointer about the P and K (no N!!)! I really appreciate your advice and am looking forward to digging in with this. Itching to get started now that the heat wave is over but everything is in bloom and I am not touching it yet. My nursery bed is absolutely gorgeous with all these guys blooming, and the hummers are enjoying it too. Thanks again!!

Well, my tomatoes did pretty well under the cloche; they are bigger and healthier than the largest transplants being sold at the local farmer's market/nurseries, and are already acclimated to the soil and all that, so I think I successfully extended the season by at least a few weeks. I would say that Steve Solomon's directions for planting tomatoes out early under a (well-sealed) tunnel cloche are pretty much spot on. The plants handled nighttime temperatures of 40-25*f for like three or four weeks, and managed to grow and be quite healthy. We did put a lot of clear plastic bottles filled with water inside as a heat sink, but I don't know how much difference that made. The only problem I have now is supporting them- because they are under the cloche, I don't have large cages or supports on them right now. I am thinking I may need to break down and make some texas cages or something, but I only have three indeterminate plants, and you usually have to buy a lot of fencing at once, so I am not sure how I will accomplish this. When we remove plastic next week, maybe I will just stack two of the large cheapo tomato cages in an hourglas shape and attach them, then support this with sticks or something.