Is the Nuns Orchid a perennial? If so I would like to trade for one. I have Ginger Butterfly, and several others, but do not know their names. I have canna Tropicana and Canna-Striata. Please ck my list, to see if I might have something else that you might be interested in. Thanks, djune/Donna

"Ginger lilies tend to work themselves to the top of the ground over time. they benefit from occasional division and resetting." Ah Hayes! You have given me a(n) Eureka moment. I have 2 hedys that have climbed out of the ground and this is what I need to do to make them increase in size. There's not enough to divide yet but I do need to reset them under the ground again. Thanks for the tip. Vivilet, I also plant my gingers in the spring. Ninety nine % of mine are hedychiums and by the fall they kick into action and start a growth spurt before the winter cuts them back. Good luck with yours!

Sonda, Places like Lowes and Walmart have their caladium and other summer bulbs in stock now. Be sure to buy early as they go quickly and be sure to NOT buy from anywhere (like Home Depot in West Knoxville) that has their tender bulbs stored outside. Cheryl, it sounds like you have some pretty stuff to choose from for your gift certificate. I don't know what gingers they have (what site is it?) but many of the hedychiums and a few curcumas are hardy here if mulched. If you don't have white butterfly ginger, you missing out on the best smelling bloom around. Nice tropical foliage during the summer and blooms late in the summer up until frost.

Hi everybody, I'm a newbee. I've gardened in Memphis for a year, but live close to Covington. I grow all kinds of perennials, a food garden (about 20 x 50'), and roses. I have crepe myrtles, shrubs, evergreens, dogwoods, and all kinds of traded flowers I just stuck in the ground and kept alive. A lot of it was here when we bought the place, and the rest has been added over the years by us. I moved 12 tea roses to another location in my yard at the beginning of July (eeek!), after researching how to do it safely, and now they are full of leaves and flowering out. Then, my friend and neighbor, who is a plant rookie, bought us both an Eden climbing rose. She said she had lived there ove 20 years, and SHE WANTED HER YARD TO LOOK NICE. She then said we needed to go in together on a rose order of English roses. HAH! She said ten roses each. I ended up getting 24 roses in all, and I'm now the official baby rose nurse until they get planted when the weather cools off. I didn't know that it was going to get over 104 degrees during the time when they were supposed to arrive. NOT TO WORRY. My husband, the ever present plant genius, told me how to keep them from frying. I took them into my bathroom, unwrapped them, and watered them with cool water from the shower. Then I potted them up to 1 gallon pots (they were only band sized rooted cuttings), watering the soil before putting it around their sensitive roots. THEN, I prepared a bed in partial shade in the back of some evergreen bushes on the shady cool side of my house, by using 4x4 timbers stacked two high, and filled that with damp peat moss. (All this in 104 degree weather) Then I BURIED the pots up to their rims in the peat moss bed. Every day I misted them 5 times a day. Every one is living and only had maybe one yellow leaf, and one is even putting out flowers (actually one flower, but it IS a beautiful one) The main thing with pots is that the roots get overheated, and the damp peat moss takes care of that. You could bury the pots directly in the dirt, but in 104 degree weather you might heat stroke out yourself digging all those holes!!! The peat moss is pretty expensive, but you can use it elsewhere when you don't need it any more. The second batch of roses (six bands) came yesterday in the mail, and it was so hot I was afraid to even put them in the peat moss bed. So, again my genius husband told me to just set them on the porch, and bring them inside the house when it got hot. And when the weather cooled down to the 90's, THEN put them in the peat moss bed. (He really is a genius. He's the one that designed all the flower beds in our yard) I think I've lost my mind ordering roses during a heat wave. I probably should be posting this in the rose forum, but y'all were talking about West Tennessee gardeners, and here I am! BTW, I also do a LOT of plant research on the internet, and have a huge inventory of info that I've collected over the years.