thanks. i was hoping for a reply from someone who cultivates them as a garden plant rather than container specimen. i think i may be too far south for them to naturalize in the surrounding woods. the soil under these deciduous trees is a well-drained sandy loam and has winter and spring wet conditions but probably too dry there during summer.

thanks for the encouragement all! deb, the sepals (sorry I misspelled that awfully in the post) show a hint of yellow and then fades like the petals but the petals hide that so that you only see the hint of yellow, if that makes sense. :) I was really excited to see this one last year and will be watching it again next summer to see if I can get some good scapes going in a clump and then count the buds etc etc and valuate it etc... Siloam Green Creek is so great with such a bold green and yellow together, I take pics of each bloom and I don't know why I would need so many pics of it on my computer but ahh well. :)

Thank you Sarah and everyone else who contributed to this swap, received my seeds and was very pleased with the selection. Cant wait till see every thing grow, Happy Gardening everyone!! Shirley

My new nightstand has arrived (finally). For those of you who don't know/recall, I bought a floor model Stickley mahogany dresser from a local furniture store last summer on clearance (about 60% off MSRP, which is still insane at just shy of $3800 on sale). But Stickley had discontinued the line (why it was on clearance) and I wanted to get a nightstand to match. At the time, I had just bought the Henkel Harris pineapple bed (#29 cherry finish, which very closes matches the Stickley mahogany in the hampton finish) and the dresser to "match." I looked everywhere, and no one had any stock of the Stickley nightstand I wanted. So one day, I asked the same store where I bought the dresser to call the factory to see if the factory had any white stock of that style of dresser (white stock is furniture that's been made but is waiting to be finished and lacks hardware). After Stickley made the banded mahogany version I have (it's solid, not veneer and is "banded" by using a silkscreen technique) and discontinued it, they went to a solid in the same fluted style but with different hardware. But that solid was discontinued, too. So the nightstand in white stock was solid. After checking with their engineers, they got back to me and said they had enough of the matching hardware to do the nightstand and that the engineers could specially make the banded treatment for me (at a slight up charge). So, 10 weeks later, I received it, and it's perfect. It's hard to imagine being able to get this sort of treatment, and I truly commend Stickley (and my local furniture store, which had the idea to see if Stickley had any lying around anyhow). It was pricey, however, at $1950. But worth it (to me, at least). So now, I've pushed the bed over toward the windows and French door, and it's given me great space when you walk into the room. But I cannot decide what type of lamp to get and where to hang art. All ideas appreciated. (I had bought a Ralph Lauren blue and white ceramic/porcelain lamp, but I hated it once I put it on the nightstand, so that's out.) I think most of you know that I just had the drapes made, etc., so don't comment about those being changed out. You may also know that I'm still hunting for a plain duvet that will work so that I can fold up the quilt at the end of the bed, but that hasn't come up yet. Thank you all.