I was just finishing up my lunch and heading back out to the garden. I have another 80 or so daylilies to pot up, about 2 dozen for my daughter and friends. I have only successfully overwintered the really tough daylilies in pots and they were tucked in up against the deck. My husband is digging my big front bed as I type and I'm hoping he will be done by month end. I like to give the smaller daylily fans a chance to develop root in pots before I overwinter them in the ground. I'll post pics of the beds asap. In the meantime, here is a couple of pics of the puppies. This is mom Chloe (Gairden's Miss Congeniality) and pups at about 3 weeks Gairden's Johnny Cash at about 11 weeks Puppies at about 3 days old. Gairden's Calendar Girl aka Koka, Gairden's Johnny Cash aka Casey, and Gairden's Good Golly Miss Molly aka Molly Most recent picture Ann and Bob at Trails End sent me of Cash (now Casey) enjoying HIS toys as Lucy watches on not amuzed! Lol Best litter I have bred! Next litter will be this winter. Repeat breeding or another blue male.

Are you all that concerned about 34 degrees? We were 7 celsius here in Toronto this morning . . . that's about 44 fahrenheit. Hmmm . . . yeah, I guess you're right - that's colder than us. I've done some of my pelargoniums/geraniums . . . in fact, I've got one with white flowers! Cool, eh? So I did that one immediately - don't want to be losing that. Here's a direct link to a photo . . . http://img228.imageshack.us/img228/1389/whitegeranium0912fe1.jpg I'll try to get better pics of the white one on the weekend. We're up and down here - today we had a high of 16 celsius, tomorrow we'll have 18 - the weekend is low twenties but with rain. What I'm trying to do is pack up for the indoors a couple of pots at a time - fortunately I chose to plant perennials wherever possible this summer. Still, there's a lot needs to come in - we have a lot of kalanchoe and that definitely has to be in for the winter. (I am, btw, experimenting with 3 of them - going to see if I can over-winter them . . . I sunk them into the ground in their pots and am putting plastic pop bottles on top as it gets colder) I'm giving about 90% of them away - I have two different kinds. If anybody here in the west end of Toronto wants some kalanchoe, lemme' know (writer56@canoemail.com). I've got some wandering jew - some? Ha! That's an understatement - I bought 4 small plants and it just boomed. That's got to come in (I'm sure of that now). And I did realize in time that mexican heather won't overwinter outside in our climate, so that's gotta' come in. Geesh! Why do we slave? Because we love it! Check out my garden forum journal at Wild City Writers' Workshop, if you'd like to see all my pics: http://wildcity.proboards14.com/index.cgi?board=gardening Feel free to participate there if you like - you don't have to be a writer. Carly :-0

Maria, Now I'll have to plant a few lettuce and snow pea plants at my parents house in Vegas. I really like Raab broccoli, too. Winter vegetables are so great. They now also have orange colored caulflower at the store. With the Di Chiogga (Red and white cored) beets, golden carrots and beets, red cabbage, and purple artichokes, it makes for a great winter vegetable array of color. Have you ever tried Gai-Lan? It's a stalky vegetable in the Broccoli family. It's fairly easy to grow. It's good stir fried in Sesame oil. With some chicken, onion, garlic, and thickened with starch, it's healthy and yummy. Serve it with rice and you've got a meal. Good luck with your Eucalyptus trees. I just finished reading about that tree on some Australian plant websites. I didn't realize there were so many varieties of that plant. They're really beautiful, but they have some unique characteristics you probably already know about. For those who don't, I learned about allelochemicals they produce so that few plants can grow around its base. It's a type of competitive advantage - but what an un-neighborly thing to do! And they are "self-pruning". During heavy winds, like during our Santa Anas, the heavy branches fall automatically. You never know when it's going to happen, it just does. You just don't want to be under the tree at that time. I think several houses and cars get ruined every winter here in So. CAL. Oh, and my brother wants to retire in Auburn, sort of between Sacramento and Reno and buy some land and have some horses. He's a surfing and skateboarding freak, but his kids love horses. Beca, it's weird how people think earthworms are gross. I know people who brag about number of earthworms per handful the same way fishermen brag about the size of their fish. A woman also told me she LOVED organically grown lettuce. So I hand her some just picked romaine with a few bugs and worms inside (I hadn't rinsed it). She told me she couldn't eat it and gave it to her next door neighbor. Maria - Japanese maple trees are really beautiful. And I love figs, not the plant, but the fruit off the tree. It's great you have both.

Pinning works very well. Sometimes I use a brick or a rock to hold the stem down. Also what I'm doing, which may not work farther north were it's colder, is to put the cuttings in qt. pots, put a few bamboo stakes around the pots, and cover the pots with a clear plastic trash bag that I've lenthened by cutting the sides. I tuck the plastic in under the pots. This holds in the moisture while the roots are developing. When a hard freeze is predicted I cover the area with a quilt and remove it in a day or two when it's warmer. Anybody else got some tips? Wishing us luck :-)