Well, if anyone is reading the "What's wrong with..." thread, you'll know I need to probably go find me a new A-bulb for this year. Guess I'm off to the Blue Seal to procure another one...maybe at a huge discount!!! (Personally, I think that jeannie's comments up there were not meant mean-spirited, only that their attempt at humor came across entirely the wrong way. *I* got the joke (similar to the one about the successful sales person who could sell ice-cubes to an eskimo), but thought that a little 'disclaimer of sorts' should have been added to it to ensure that it was taken the right way.) No, we CAN'T pass up a bargain...and if there wasn't 2-feet of snow on the ground, you betcha I'd be scoffing up anymore 75% + bargain-bulbs that crossed my path!!! I personally prefer to 'take a chance' on a bargain with something that I don't "have" to have simply to see if I like them, or to take a little gamble. I'd rather gamble my "maybe I might like them" on a discount than to pay full retail and find out I hate it. Like jeannie said, if they don't come up, then it was a small price to pay for some decent compost material in my garden.

Hello Everyone.....haven't posted in a while but I'm back now. I frequently purchase items from the sale racks at our local Lowes (Rome, GA) and have had VERY positive and inexpensive success. Some of the things that I have gotten include: Leyland Cypress (about 4 feet tall for $2/each) Roses for $2 each Salvia (4 in pots for a quarter each) Lorepetelum $2 each) Lots of petunias I am wanting to start with some blueberries so I think I'll pay them a visit later today after work and see what I can find. Some of the stuff on the clearance racks are dead.....but if you look beyond those things....one can find some really good deals. I once saw a 12 ft Magnolia (which was just pot/root bound) for only $20. I already had one and can't stand the leaves it puts out so I passed on that. Dora Rome/Floyd Co.

Soonergrandmom, I hope your foot heals quickly and you are back to your usual activities before you know it! My mom broke her foot this winter and didn't know how she did it either. Hers healed nicely and she is back to her usual shopping routine, which makes her happy. She had a cast and hated going anywhere with it, so mostly stayed home while she was stuck in the cast. Katyar, I am always happy to enable a fellow gardener to go crazy at plant sales! You know, if I lived anywhere near OKC I'd be going to all the same shows, sales and tours. Living down here in the boonies means I miss a lot of that stuff though. We try to make it up to OKC once or twice a year, but haven't managed it this year. It has been one of those crazy years with weddings and wedding showers and sick friends and new babies and baby showers and funerals and graduations, etc., etc., etc. where we can't seem to go a week without having to run off here or there to go to one thing or another. Consequently, our usual 'routine' is all out of whack and I can't get myself organized. It has been an absolutely crazy year. I hope you enjoy all your new plants. I do have some cactus growing here, even in our wet, sticky, slow-draining clay soil. I would love to have more, but think most of them couldn't take our mucky clay. Courtney, I think ice cream and chocolate are the cure for whatever ails a person.....and if you aren't sick or injured, then you ought to eat them anyway, you know, to prevent illness and injury. lol We eat lots of ice cream in the summertime, and year-round as well. My DH thinks ice cream is one of the four basic food groups, and not plain ice cream either. It has to have chocolate syrup or Magic Shell on it, nuts, cherries, sprinkles, peanuts....whatever, and the more the merrier. Today we are going to make homemade ice cream again. It is getting to be a habit. Today's new recipe: a home-made version of Chunkey Monkey. I can hardly wait. Dawn

well as long as we're venturing into Knoxville.....there is Stanley's greenhouses and nursery. It's off I-40 at James White Parkway. go thru town across the bridge that goes over the river, and past Baptist hospital. You'll see a shopping center on the right (Disc Exchange sorta juts out at you) and on the left is Shoney's restaurant, and I think a Ruby Tuesday. But there is a light right there that you'd turn left at. Follow the road up a bit until it T's at a stop sign. Turn right (you'll see a little sign saying Stanley's greenhouses and pointing right) and take the gentle curve and you can't miss the main nursery. It's worth the visit. awesome selections of perennials and annuals and most impressive shrubs and the like. I lost my mind there Sunday and overspent what I intended to. And then spent my last $20 on a variegated Mock Orange and a Sweet shrub......I went sedum mad though. Angelina, Harvest moon, some I can't recall their names but unusual and not what you'd expect. Nice selection of cactus and the like too. No taxes as they grow their own. Awesome selection of clay pots and stuff too. I love this place. Had I known about it before last year I'd be working there! (I had to help a few people with questions about plants throughout the visit there, even did a plug about me to Mr. Stanley to see if I could snag a job there.......one day I WILL be working there. madgardener up on the ridge, where we're getting a bit of Locust winter, back in Fairy Holler, overlooking English Mountain in Dandridge.