I'm coming to this conversation a few years late. The story of my life, LOL! Anyway, I live in the heart of Muscadine country, SE Georgia and have twelve vines in all. Three of them, Ison, Supreme, and Pam are beginning their third year of production. (They have bloom buds and will be blooming soon that is.) Two other varieties and a second Ison, will enter their first year of production this year. (Yes, I liked Ison enough to get a second vine.) The reputation of the Ison muscadine is that it's not very cold tolerant in comparison to some others. However it is one of the earliest black varieties to bare fruit, so if you succeed at taking measures to protect it in a colder climate, you have a better chance of actually getting fruits with Ison than you would with say Late Fry which has better cold tolerance but needs a much longer growing season to ripen fruit. If you like the white muscadines, maybe you should try a brand new one that has just come out called Hall. I don't have this one, but Hall is supposed to be very cold hardy and an early season variety. It's also self fertile like Ison, so you only need one vine. Lane is another new early season self fertile variety that has just come out. The subject of Lane raises another consideration when picking a muscadine, and that's skin qualities. One of the big improvements in muscadines is the skin. The skin of Ison is not as tough or bitter as some of the older varieties. But the skin of the still newer table varieties such as Supreme, Black Beauty, Late Fry, Lane and a few others is crunchy and sweet. So the lady who mentioned her daughter eating the skins, well, if its from one of the newer varieties such as Supreme, I don't blame her. Ison is a great muscadine bred expressly to have a lot of the flavor characteristics of wild muscadines. It's really meant for making jam and yes some wines where you have an especially strong "musky" muscadine flavor. As a result, some folks will tend to prefer the flavor of some of the table varieties that aren't so musky. Most of my vines are on trellises for fruit production. I planted my second Ison to go on a swing arbor. I was impressed with the way Ison has a long lasting two tone red green color phase on it's ripening grapes which I find very attractive. I planted the second vine on the swing arbor for aesthetic reasons on account of that characteristic. Last comment, someone mentioned the red pigment of black muscadines being unstable. Yes, that's true, but the variety Nobel, has the most stable pigmentation and therefor most commercial red muscadine wines will have at least some Nobel grapes in them. If the wine maker is going for a strong musk flavor, they will do about a 70% Ison and 30% Nobel mix. God bless. Marcus

ken_adrian, I took that photo at Island Drive Park in Adrian (which is where I live). Here's what it says about S. marilandica on the U of M herbarium site: Not always easily distinguished from S. lanceolata, though frequently taller and more branched. The sides of the stem in S. marilandica are usually ñ grooved or channeled, while in the other species the sides are usually flat or slightly convex, and the leaves of the latter are often more irregularly toothed (even somewhat incised toward the base). In this photo the stems do seem deeply grooved. I'm going back after the lawn guy leaves and take more photos.

Kristen - you contributed for me but I can include some data from previous years: 2006 Zone 7, Phila., PA (in the city but on the border line of Montco) Closest first on map = 4/9/06 My first = 4/29/06 (same as this year) Days diff = 20 -------------------------- 2005 Zone 7, Phila., PA (in the city but on the border line of Montco) Closest first on map = 4/7/05 My first = 6/5/05 Days diff = 59 My very first hummer experience was back in 2004 during fall migration season and I don't have the exact date handy of that (my very first hummer sighting ever), but it was some time in mid-August 2004. The first sighting in the area that year was 4/7/04. In general, the males tend to come earlier and in 2005, I only had a returning female, who showed up on 6/5/05. But once I got my first 2 juvie males of 2005 and they got a taste of my spot, one of them returned the next year on 4/29/06. The mom returned later on 5/10/06. There were 4 juvie males and at least 3 adult females that summer and one of the 2006 juvie males showed up this year on 4/29/07. One of the females appeared on 5/10/07.

Thank you for the kind thoughts-Christmas was bittersweet at times, and there were some group tears moments-but over all it was fun-DD and DS-in-L were in from the West Coast and we enjoyed our half of their visit. After an autumn of comfort rereading, I am moving on-first I read Sister Queens by Julia Fox-a tandem biography of Catherine of Aragon (1st wife of Henry VIII) and Juana of Castile, queen of Aragon and Castile in her own right and mother of a Holy Roman Emperor. Interesting parallels even though they met only once after Catherine left for England at age 16. Now I am treating myself with Miss Buncle's Book by D.E. Stevenson. Charming, light, a bonbon. Work has started up again-deadline on the 3rd-so reading time will become slim and precious. For BookClub in January we will be reading Killing Lincoln