Thanks for all the kind responses and encouragement. Can't wait to see the blooms, and will be sure to post pictures when the days of first blooms arrive... and they cannot arrive soon enough! :-) Taxonomist, my goal at this point was just to get a cross to take and seeds to sprout! lol I've tried some other crosses involving Lyon's Midnight Sun, Aca's Summer Parfait, and another pink with huge blooms (Kathryn something or other? Bloomlovers website seems to be down. That's where I got the leaf). Really, Firebird is the heaviest blooming violet I've ever had. It is never not loaded with blooms, so that is one quality I was hoping to pass on, along with the frilly and full nature of Blue Mist's blooms. Both plants have nice foliage that grows very symmetrically, so am hoping that quality will pass down, too. As far as color... no specific goal, just curiosity. Ideally, if I could get a plant with Firebird's magenta color and bloom production, with Blue Mist's full double form and wider white edge, I would be thrilled. We'll see! Thanks again to all for your responses. :-)

Your second question: usually, compost is primarily decomposed plant material (plant material broken down by bacteria, fungi, et al.) and manure is primarily animal-digested plant material, i.e., animal dung. Let's ignore the phrase "green manure" for the time being... ;-) But, as michaelg says, it all ends up more or less the same thing (makes sense, having all started as plant material). Manure is the more dis-assembled form of plant material, has more available nitrogen. But, home composters might throw manure into their compost pile mix to liven things up. "Soil amendment compost" derived from residential green waste might also contain decomposed animal materials (we are urged to throw bones and meat scraps into our "green bin", the contents of which are ground up at a composting facility). Commercial soil amendment products based on compost might also contain a small percentage of animal manure or other animal products: bat guano, chicken manure, feather meal, etc. So, "compost" products may in fact be a combination that also contains manure. What's in a commercial product is always listed on the bag. This post was edited by catspa on Thu, Jul 11, 13 at 14:54

Hi nhbabs, I killed a couple before this one. Finally, I planted in a raised mound of good soil plus gravel (that I collected from the driveway --despite my husband's protests. Grin. I believe in using what's on hand.) I really don't know why this one survived. It could have been the snow cover that did the trick. --Or the improved drainage. Or maybe because the L. longipetala cross is easier to keep alive. I do know that if I lose this little one I'll miss it next year. It was so exciting to see it still there after the snow melted, and then to see those flower stems coming out from beneath it!

Thank goodness it worked! Thank you, UK Ponds, for making this such a simple process to upload pictures. Big Kid