Katsu, did you get a purple heuchera? I have several different purplish ones. I have 2 'Ruby Veils'. One gets sun until 1:30 and the other gets sun til around 11am. I've noticed that the one that gets less sun loses some of it's purple color. The other one is always purple. The other ones I have get sun from early morning until 1:30 or so. They have retained their color and are doing fine. I just got 'Plum Pudding' this year and it is just a beautiful dark purple. I hope you enjoy whatever one you got! Kat

Ree, we need to be forum buddies...I think we are both on a tear with heuchera lately! :) I know I already posted this on the heuch forum, but the big box stores are really stocking some nice varieties this year! Not just Dale's and Purple Palace. I picked up Golden Zebra, Fire Chief, Frosted Violet, Circus, Beaujolais, Peach Crisp, and a few others. Only $8 for gallons...still adds up, but better than I've seen online or at nurseries. There are still a gazillion fancier varieties I'm yearning for. Venus, Spellbound, Citronelle, Glitter, and Georgia Plum are the top five on my wish list at the moment. You think Casita Azul has a discount if you order one of each?? :) A (trusted) nursery source said any of the heuchs have done well for her in our climate. Her only tip was to "plant high" to stave off crown rot and to watch for Southern Blight, as it can wipe out a shade bed pretty quickly. I found SB on a few hostas last year, but treated it early enough that it didn't do much harm. I'm also very interested in hearing about winter sowing heuchs. I have WS other plants, but I have heard heuchera are slow and/or tricky from seed. I could certainly feed my addiction more affordably that way, though!

I don't know how I missed this earlier other than I am trying not to spend much time on the computer these days. I am glad we have a new addict in the group. I use Daves Garden a lot. Dave who started Daves garden and is no longer with them started a new site this spring it is all things plants which you will need to google as well. For natives I like Prairie Moon selling seeds and plants is their main thing but the site is also very informative. Many of my plants were started from their seed. The two books I use the most are "Month-By-Month Gardening in Minnesota' by Melinda Myers and "Perennials for Every Purpose" by Larry Hodgson. It is a Rodale organic gardening book. My garden is totally organic.

Shades, congrats on cleaning & organizing! While it's a lot of work, I always feel a great sense of satisfaction when I look around at tidy spaces. Like you, mosaic is one of my hobbies and that's where it's so hard to keep the clutter down. I mean, we need supplies, and when a project's done, I have leftovers that I'll for sure use on something some day. For me, that's where the discipline comes in. I've currently got half-finished projects and supplies for other projects I haven't even started, and yesterday I went shopping for tile! I vowed to myself this morning that before I bought one more piece of tile, I was going to finish all the projects I've got going. No more shopping for new tiles until I've used up at least a good chunk of the ones I have. But the temptation is always there! My heart goes out to hoarders. It's a condition that can really get debilitating for some, and I know how hard it can be to part with things we think we need. When we were moving and scaling down from our big house, what helped me the most was designating the new space first. Then I would decide which pieces to keep based on how much room I had designated for myself. The best example of this was my sewing desk. In the old house, I had a desk with 7 good sized drawers where I kept all my sewing, quilting and embroidery supplies. In the same room I also had 4 large Rubbermaid containers full of fabric scraps, partially-completed projects, etc. That was the spare room we were losing in the new house so most of it was going to have to go, and since I don't do as much sewing as I used to it wasn't a planned space in the new house. So, I bought myself a sewing box--one of those containers you buy at the fabric store that has compartments, etc. That sewing box was my new designated "space" and I only allowed myself to keep what fit in that box. It was hard having to part with some things, but honestly, I've been in the new house 3 years and have only really *needed* the things I put in that sewing box. As for my Rubbermaid containers in the closet, I decided I had room in the new house for one of them. So out of the five, I picked out the things I really wanted the most. The rest had to go. And honestly, I think that's a container I haven't even opened once since I've been here! For me, that was the best way to go through a space and make decisions, as it can be overwhelming trying to decide what can stay/go if you don't have concrete parameters to work with. I don't know if that would work for everyone, but it was one trick that made clearing the clutter easier for me.