Tom, those are beautiful!!!it is filling the arbor really nice. Bernie, I see that you master the photobucket and I can see some beautiful tomatoes. I already divided the tomatoes by taste, Willy likes black tomatoes and I made him black tomato salsa. Cheryl likes the fruity ones and I made her yellow and orange tomato salsa. And me, I like them all except very few. The jetsetters that I have were in the middle of the garden. About sun dry tomatoes in the sun I don't think is a good idea because of the humidity and the bugs, I used to do that in Arizona with apricots. You can roast them in the oven at the lowest temperatures for a few hours and they are even better, you can also add anything you like like spices, salt, pepper, herbs, olive oil, balsamic vinegar. Roast them for a few hours till done. Silvia

Being in Canada, my choices are more limited re. mail order daylilies. But I have found 2 great places and they have many wonderful varieties. Last year, some daylilies that I started from seed 2 years earlier finally bloomed. First of all I love surprises and secondly, some of them look very close to a few of the expensive dazzlers. So happy! And of course, lack of space did not stop me from ordering even more today: Sandra Elizabeth, Final Touch, and Jersey Spider. The first 2 I was told have not bloomed yet, and the last "blooms early and continuously". Is that true?? I used to have other (real) lilies, but the dreaded red lily beetle decimated my collection, and so I have "converted" to daylilies. They are wonderful.

It looks a lot like Gruss an Teplitz. It will get at least 10' tall however, since it was before. It looks a lot like Dr. Huey. It has weathered -10 degrees and likely -15 degrees. While this was a mild winter, it has been around for at least 9 years. How much longer before that, I don't know since I just remember Mrs. Clarke pointing it out to me when she was still in her nineties. I can't think who would have planted it for her, though, so it may have been around for a lot longer before I noticed it.

It ain't all bad, but none of it is actually good yet, at least those I have tried. Hardy's, Jacob's Creek, and a few others from Australia make box wine that is drinkable, but not yet "good", although I suppose it is only a matter of time before they are putting even better juice in the boxes. Personally, I think it's a grea idea, but the market is not going to accept good wine in bags for a few years yet, so it is only the cheapest stuff that is going in. The wines from California mentioned in the link are really not worth drinking. At least not if you like wine. Dont' know how much you want to spend, but you can get really nice rose for under $10 a bottle, and really nice whites for the same. Some wonderful roses are available right now for $5 - $10. In fact, they may represent some of the best bargains out. For whites, New Zealand sauvignon blancs tend to be safe - maybe not exceptional but it is hard to find a really bad one. Also look at the big producers in Washington - the Chateau St. Michelle group that includes Columbia Crest and Villa Mt Eden. They make rieslings and chardonnays that are around $6 a bottle and astoundingly good for the prices. Even the Germans have a few rieslings at the QBA level that are worth looking at for under $10. For reds, you might want to look at some Argentine wines - the offerings from Altos las Hormigas, Norton, Dona Paula and others for example, are often as low as $6-$7 and really good. Spain has a lot of under $10 wines - Tres Picos (drinks like a MUCH more expensive Chateauneuf du Pape), Pannaroz, Las Rocas, and others are nice, as well as many from Australia, including the lower end offerings of Hardy's, Wishing Tree, Paringa, and others. Unfortunately, the cheaper California offerings are of lower quality, although if you stay away from Napa and Sonoma, your price/quality ratio improves. Fess Parker is making some nice wines in Santa Barbara. They have pictures of him as Daniel Boone or Davy Crockett on the labels but the wine itself is made by his son and is not bad. Joel Gott has a zin called Three Thieves - his family has been in the wine business forever and he has contacts for good fruit. The wine comes in a little jug but it's a decent buy, not great.