This is how the thread began but perhaps time to take another look? You can pick out a thank you card and Xerox will print it and it will be sent to a soldier that is currently serving in Iraq. You can't pick out who gets it, but it will go to some member of the armed services. How AMAZING it would be if we could get everyone we know to send one!!! It is FREE and it only takes a second. Wouldn't it be wonderful if the soldiers received a bunch of these? Whether you are for or against the war, our guys and gals over there need to know we are behind them.

Sherry, I have been pondering your comment about my garden taking a back seat, and indeed it has - but it's by my choice. I much prefer gardening in a public place, with other people working with me and coming to see the garden. The cemetery rose garden is three acres, with a lot of sun and well-drained sandy loam soil, while my home garden is small and rather shady and has dense clay soil, soggy in the winter and hard as a rock in summer despite years of soil amendment. I enjoyed planning my garden, but tweaking and maintaining it isn't nearly as rewarding as caring for the cemetery garden. I also like managing people - that's what I did for a living. It's a lot different to do it with volunteers rather than paid employees, and I've learned that I need both a smile in my face and in my heart to do it effectively. I do have a nice garden at home, and this is the time of year when I have an illusion of control over it. While it's not my main focus, it still gives me pleasure. I am reluctant to have strangers come see it because I'm pretty well known as a Master Gardener and garden writer and rose garden manager, and it's very hard to live up to their expectations. But I happily share it with friends, family and fellow rose lovers - just not garden tours! About dealing with the early stages of a garden - because we have so much room in the cemetery, the roses were mostly planted with plenty of space to grow. Having the burial plots cleared of weeds and planted with roses was such an improvement that I don't think there was any pressure to make it look like a conventional garden. There was almost no pruning of the roses in the first several years. I think that I first visited it three or four years after its establishment, and it looked both barren and overgrown, with big unruly roses surrounded by weeds and wood chips. We've done a huge amount of work adding companion plants, including annuals that self-seed and perennials. That takes volunteer time to maintain them, of course. We volunteers primarily work on the roses, of course, but we like the big unruly look and focus on the roses being healthy and not blocking pathways or monuments. The garden is still mostly roses and wood chips, with plenty of weeds, but it looks more like a garden now than it did before. The cemetery went from roses only to roses with companion plants - at home, my experience was more like Jeri's with the Stagecoach Garden (which is a little gem). I filled in with perennials and annuals and the garden was quite pretty in early days while the roses got established, but it's changed a lot as the roses and trees have shaded and crowded some of the planting beds. It still is pretty but it's not got the variety that it once has - the roses dominate. Anita

"Two of the three "champions" have spoken. Truth means nothing to them so they make up their own stories." No one has made up any stories. "Of course, none of this matters to a "champion". They have their lies to keep them busy. I do not have any daylilies anymore." Well said, and now that you no longer have any Daylilys, you probably don't have much to contribute here, maybe you could find a philosophy or negativity forum somewhere. I'm sure you'll be a hit there. I guess you'll never win a Stout now either. Wade, you have some serious issues, please do yourself a favor and try and get some help. Read this carefully.... "To be different, or a non-conformist, we have to sacrifice. You can't walk the fence and have any integrity. You can't pursue your own agendas. You have to basically lose everything. You have to take on the monster we have become. "Champions" pop up at every corner to protect the status quo because that is where the personal investments are. The common person expends their energy protecting the illusions they live in. I decided a while back that there just isn't anything important enough for me to play the selfish game anymore. Money means nothing to me. It is just the vehicle that takes us to the next day. Erosion is a word that describes the quality of life. Lies are the most valuable items we use each day." You really need to stop elevating yourself and quit looking down on other people just because they don't share your negative views and opinions of everything. Excuse me now my coffee cup is half full, I think I'll go top it off.

:D Not as many as I will have come spring! Let's see, up until now I had Stella de Oro, H. Fulva 'Europe', a yellow NOID much like Stella but different shade of yellow & bloom time, 5 surprise NOIDs from a local AHS sale- non of which have bloomed yet, a red NOID that hasn't bloomed in several years, then last fall I planted Breathless Beauty from WalMart and Wineberry Candy from a plant exchange here on the forums. Now I have ~100 seedlings started, another couple hundred seeds coming, and 32 ordered for spring so far. Not too bad for the first few months of a new addiction. I'd say from reading the rest of these posts that I've been fairly disciplined- though a good deal of that has to do with not much land to plant them on and being addicted to other plants too (OGR for example).