miguel, so your hypothesis is that it is not so simple as merely a longer warmer growing season that allows rebloom but specific light/nutrient/water conditions..? hmmm well right now, i only have one data point to give you - ramona from her post bloom haircut last year. i gave her a very severe 2/3 haircut last year and that could have some impact. i do not recall fertilizing with pellets/compost/liquid after pruning. i watered whenever it didn't rain for 2 weeks. ramona is planted right next to one of my multiblues, SSE facing with afternoon shade btw 1-4pm due to some big trees in our neighbor's yard, possibly in the fall they get less sun due to the angle of the sun.. also cultivar could very well be a consideration. ramona typically blooms at least 2-3 weeks later than my other group 2s... so i just pruned my multiblue today by 1/2 to see if it will rebloom this year. although the summer was late by 2-3 weeks this year so again that can throw the results. wow, this isn't going to be a very scientifically sound experiment - too many variables really. but sounds like fun nonetheless! entling and eden, i'm so excited you're going to do this with me! eden i don't think it is possible for you to plant too deep.. and i know what you're saying about wanting them to finish blooming. when i pruned nelly and multiblue this weekend, i clipped off a few flowers/pompoms that were still in bloom in my rush to clean up the plants.. it almost feels as if my OCCD (obsessive compulsive clematis disorder) is wearing off a little..

We use a combination of Nickel Plus and K-Phite. It's working great. We spray with both, using a sticker-spreader we got at Tractor Supply. We also add their blue dye now, because it helps us see where we have missed a spot. It isn't very easy to see through goggles, with sweat pouring down in your eyes. Just avoid spraying any blossoms, unless you are really desperate for a blue daylily. We were advised to spray once a week for 3 weeks, then wait 3 weeks before spraying again. I've only sprayed once this fall, since it has been raining off and on ever since. Occasionally, I will have a plant that shows sign of rust, but nothing like it was before I started using the nickel. I wouldn't use anything else. Well, let me take that back. I am going to try some Actinovate on just a few isolated and unimportant plants to see how it works. The only thing I don't like is having to don all that protective gear, but I wouldn't have it otherwise. I'm very cautious. We use goggles, a special pesticide mask we bought at Lowes, chemical gloves (also at Lowe's), rubber boots and a yellow rain slicker. My hubby and our yardman refuse to put on a garbage bag drawstring skirt, but if I'm doing the spraying, I wear that, too. I'll have to get my hubby to take a picture of me in that fancy outfit so everyone can get a good laugh. When the weather is warm, we get very sweaty in all that garb! We start very early in the morning while it is still cool. We have a big tank sprayer on wheels we pull behind our riding lawn mower. It runs on the lawn mower battery. We got an extra length of hose so we can cover more territory. One of us drives the lawn mower while the other sprays. I could do it by myself, but it takes longer to have to keep stopping to move the mower ahead. We wash the tank out thoroughly after spraying and run clear water through the wand when we have finished. Aren't you cold climate people lucky??? Nancy

OKLibrarian, So, you're saying you have to plant cool-season crops first and harvest them in order to make room for warm-season crops? That can be very difficult since there is some overlap. I have some raised beds for cool-season crops and I begin planting onions and potatoes in them in Feb. of most years, but other raised beds reserved only for warm-season crops, and I start planting in them in late March of most years, or earlier with plant protection like buckets (to cover tomato plants on cold nights) or frost blankets. The first couple of years that we lived here, I had to use the same beds for cool-season and warm-season crops, and it didn't work well for me because I needed to plant warm-season crops like tomatoes early enough to "beat the heat", but my cool-season crops were still a month or two from being ready for harvest. After I enlarged the garden by adding another raised bed or two for several consecutive years, I finally had a large enough space to plant both in separate beds. Now, when cooler-season crops are harvested and a bed is "cleared", I just succession sow a warm-season crop in its place. This succession planting allows me to plant something virtually every month from Feb. through Sept. or Oct., if enough rainfall is occurring that I can plant in the summer for a fall garden. I also use containers to raise some early tomatoes because above-ground containers (mine sit on a southward-facing concrete slab with a metal barn wall north of them) warm up faster than the soil in my raised beds, and I can drag the containers into the barn if really cold weather threatens. It also fills my "need" to plant something in Feb. (that's when I put purchased plants from 6" containers in the 5 large containers on the slab) and I usually harvest tomatoes from them in April from a mid- to late-Feb. planting date. The plants I buy are very large, with main stems about the size of my index finger, and often they are in bloom or about to bloom when I buy them. With luck and if the container plantings are successful, my tomato harvest starts in April and continues until frost wipes out my in-ground plants, which occurs in November of most years. Hi Hank, The Oklahoma Mesonet was developed and implemented as a joint project between OU and OSU and has been operational since 1994. It consists of 110 observation stations, with at least 1 in each Oklahoma county. Each station has various weather measurement instruments located at on near a 10-meter transmission tower. Mesonet station observations are made every 5 minutes 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, every week of the year. The data is bundled and transmitted to the Oklahoma Climatological Society every 5 minutes and the OCS verifies the data and provides it to Mesonet customers. When you are viewing current data, you're seeing observations recorded in the last 5 to 15 minutes. The type of data observed includes air temperature, dewpoint, relative humidity, wind speed and direction, soil moisture levels, soil temperatures at several depths, etc. The types of weather events tracked via the recording of this data includes dry lines and the movement of cold fronts, thunderstorms, heat bursts, wind gusts, etc. You can use the section labeled "past data and files" to view observations for any month and year for any station dating back to Jan. 1994, assuming the station you're requesting was operational then. So, for example, if I am trying to determine when my county's average last frost "really" occurs, as opposed to the average last frost date based on 30-year averages, I can pull up data for March and April of each year and see the last freeze date and figure out what planting date seems safe for me, much as I detailed in my orginal answer to the original post on this thread. I use the mesonet a lot in the spring to track air temperatures and soil temperatures and use that data in making planting decisions. Mesonet data is used by many research groups and government organizations, like NASA, the National Science Foundation, the U. S. Departments of Agriculture, Commerce and Energy, and the Oklahoma Water Resource Board. Yet, much of the same data is available online to citizens like you and me. Basic mesonet use/data is free, although you'd need to download the free Weatherscope software in order to be able to use the Mesonet's features. Some people and organizations subscribe and receive access to more data. When you go to the Mesonet's main screen (linked below), you see a state map showing current temperatures. In a litle box beneath the map, you'll see the weather observations for the station you've selected as your "home" station (mine is Burneyville) and the data in that box includes the most recent observations for air temperature, heat index or wind chill as appropriate, dewpoint and relative humidity, recorded rainfall, and wind speed and direction. On the left side of the page is a menu and you can click on the categories there to see various data brought up and displayed on the map. When you click on a category at the left, you get another index box at the right with sub-categories you can see. For example, if you click on the soil temperature at left, you get an index at right where you can click on soil temps at various depths. I use "Mesonet Data" the most and one sub-category I often use is "Past Data and Files". Sometimes I click on "Decision Products" in order to view Agweather Data or OK FIRE data. Since my spouse is the local VFD's fire chief, and my son is a professional firefighter and a volunteer firefighter on his "days off", we use OK Fire data a lot when we have grassfires or wildfires because the data helps us understand the current fire data, and it helps predict fire intensity, ignition, spread, direction/speed of forward movement, etc. Many agricultural producers and even simple home gardeners use AgWeather to make decisions about planting, irrigation, harvesting, spraying (dispersal conditions),etc. I find the mesonet data to be very helpful. Combined with the NWS's Enhanced Weather Page, I can sit down at my computer and spend 2 to 4 minutes viewing weather data and have a good understanding of what is occurring in Oklahoma, weatherwise, at any given point in time. ' I hope this info is helpful. Dawn Here is a link that might be useful: Oklahoma Mesonet

Thanks Fruitnut. 9 miles south of me in Detroit it was only -9F. 30 miles north of me it was -26F. Where my cottage is. Oh well. It's part of growing these things. I will still have raspberries, blueberries, strawberries, melons, watermelons, so it will be fine. Hopefully some blackberries. I'm going to buy Darrow and Nelson the hardest of hardy blackberries and play with crossing them to improve flavor. Also use some local wilds this year. Thursday night it is expected to be -12F so more is coming. Both my cars the batteries were dead this morning. One I just bought a new battery last year.