Sonatta at 20 to 24" is a short variety of Cosmos, but not 3 inches. The taller ones are 3 or 4 feet tall. It is a full sun plant and shouldn't be planted in the shade. When you dug them up was the root still in that same little ball? It sounds to me that your cosmos was pot bound when you planted them, and if they were still in that same ball it confirms it. When a plant is in a small container for a long time the roots have nowhere to go so they go round and round in the bottom of the container. If you don't loosen them so they are hanging down they will continue to keep going round in the same way. The plant can't get what it needs to grow. Dig them up and loosen the bottom roots. Then give them a gentle squeeze from side to side and replant. You should always look at the roots of any plant before you stick them in the ground. As for deadheadding--The purpose of deadheadding is to remove the spent flower so it doesn't go to seed and so your flower will keep putting out more blooms. You just remove the flower. If you cut back to the stem you will be cutting off potential side shoots and have a mighty skinny plant with few flowers.

Thanks for the reply, i dont think its cockroach nymphs, as they are all the same size they live in the soil where one of my plants is, if i dig the soil up i see them running all over. They are exactly the same as the ones in my nute tank. I got two awesome pictures today. The first one is of the cockroach looking bugs. You get an idea of the size of it in the first picture as it is on my hand. http://img227.imageshack.us/img227/9850/bugonhandcw7.jpg http://img522.imageshack.us/img522/3715/bug2kf7.jpg http://img146.imageshack.us/img146/6303/bug3ee9.jpg And these two pics are of the white thing under the leaf (its a much clearer picture) http://img529.imageshack.us/img529/7039/underleaftm4.jpg http://img360.imageshack.us/img360/8968/underleaf2sy5.jpg I hope someone can help me ...

I have a white Wal Mart mini that I have identified as Escamo from the Kordana series of mini's. Grows like a weed and has beautiful, slightly larger creamy white blooms. Check out the Kordana mini's on you're computer and see if it matchs up with anything they have.

Oh my goodness! Thank you so much, everyone! Lindybarts, I really like the red, and I thought that would be IT, until I followed your playhouse link. I've got to go blue! Valzone5, what an amazing place to live! I adore all of that vibrant color. I am in love with the blue barn with the cream trim and yellow doors. Since the body color on my house is so light (almost a cream) do you guys think I could pull off that color scheme by adding blue and deeper yellow (would you call that gold?) Wow, I really love that barn. Thanks Funkyart! This house is definitely quirky. It was built in the late sixties as a cabin, so there are funny things like stair treads that only fit 5 year old feet. The gems are the pink bathtub and white formica flecked with gold in near perfect shape. Those we'll be keeping. : ) Oceanna, are you serious that the decorative painting would be simple? I have not one artistic bone in my body. I think something like that would be amazing over and around the front door to give it some oomph. A question for everyone who suggested window boxes-would the ones on the upper windows be difficult to maintain? I love the way they look in Lindybarts' picture.