Jamietee....that is a Fairy Rose, it's a landscape type that does well for me. I prune them back hard after first bloom, and they bloom again. Patricia...love your roses, gorgeous as usual.....thanks for sharing. Did you get some of that rain today? I was in Prattville at my SIL's and it rained there. Got home and it had rained here too. That makes 3 days we've actually got measurable rain in Santuck this week!! Jan

Margaret, we will pray that the spider mites don't find your dahlias. . . They are something of a bane to my existence! Spider mites can be killed with a soap spray but I think you can almost kill more of them with a hose and just water. Combining the 2 once a week, is a good approach. As long as it is hot and dry, and the mites have found the dahlias . . . oh boy. It just goes on & on. I really don't find digging & storing them all that difficult. The bed is very nearly prepared for the next year's plants - something I'd need to do anyway, maybe just waiting for spring. When I just had a few plants, I would just plunk the whole entire thing in a box of leaves and carry it downstairs. That's a little heavy . . . The soil is washed off now. I know, I'm not supposed to do that but they then sit in a garage for a little while to dry and getting the soil off allows me to find the old tuber & damaged new ones - and take them off. Then they are dropped in dry peat moss (not always easy to find) and downstairs they go. Much lighter! I've had to shop around for dry peat some years. I've also had to split open the bale and spread it out on a tarp to dry in the sun. Didn't appreciate that nor the enormous weight of a wet bale of peat! Shopping around is easier. Pine shavings seem to work as well but I'm left with trying to decide what to do with those come spring. I'm very comfortable treating peat moss as a compostable. I'm sure it doesn't degrade further but there's little possible harm to the garden. Peat is mined. I'm not comfortable with that but I'm not burning it. It does not go out of existence in my gardens, that fairly easy to see and appreciate its value. Hopefully, the watershed that once built the peat won't be going away and it will be rebuilt. There is also coconut coir. There was a question about salt content but I'm way over my head in knowing anything about minerals and root storage. Steve

Hi Katie, is it Aeonium var? Very nice colors. Greets Harry

Things are still in full swing here, lots of egg laying going on. But I have just seen two Zebra swallowtails the whole year and not a single Viceroy. I even planted native willow last Fall, since I didn't think the weeping kind will work. I am fascinated with the milkweed tussock moth. I have never seen caterpillars eat so much and travel such distances. I stopped moving them around except for some occasional ones that seem to be lost on the porch. They are doing such a great job finding the milkweed themselves. They even found the milkweed vine that has been ignored by the Monarchs for the past few years. Good to see something besides aphids using it. I do really like the flowers though.