Hmm, worse than a drummer next door? Someone I know had a bagpipe player next door. Now I happen to like bagpipe music but it's not everyone's cup of tea. And even I would not like to hear it next door in a close-built neighborhood. My own experience is that rust is a problem that is worse in spring and fall. In the midst of summer only susceptible roses seem to suffer from it. I do remember though that on the El Niño year about 10-12 years ago, all the roses had it, pretty much all summer long. It may just be that you are experiencing a local pocket of rust-inducing conditions this year. Someone twenty miles away may not have the same things going on that you are. Rosefolly

Pam, "My" recipe is just my adaptation of Al's 5-1-1 mix from the Container Forum. I've tried to tailor it to the kind of conditions I have here, as well as to my wish to largely avoid peat as much as possible. I even vary what I put in it and in what proportions depending on whether I'm expecting a year that is wet, dry or average. For example, if we were expecting an El Nino spring with heavy rainfall, I'd mix it so it drains better but if I was expecting a drier year, I'd add coir to help it hold moisture. When it is very hot and dry here, even 20-gallon and larger containers often need to be watered twice or three times daily in hot weather so my container plants suffer in a dry year if the mix drains too quickly. As far as the ProMix, that's a lot of peat. If I was going to grow regular plants in it, I'd add pine bark fines for sure. If I was growing acid-lovers like blueberries or azaleas, I'd still add pine fines, but less of them. I can only dream of growing anything here that likes acidity because my soil and water both test at about 8.2 to 8.3. I can modity the soil and lower its pH pretty easily but not the water, so I don't grow anything that prefers highly acidic conditions. Peat is so peculiar. When it is wet, it can hold moisture forever, and that's what I don't like about it. And, when peat gets really, really dry it is hard to rewet it. In climates where the weather can swing from dropping several inches of rain in a few hours to virtually no rain at all for weeks or even months, I feel like mixes that have a heavy peat component underperform compared to mixes that have only a moderate amount of peat, or no peat at all. I do agree that pine bark fines improve any mix heavy in peat, and would drastically improved most any mix you can buy. The heavier peat component in starter mixes is necessary for great drainage, but I don't like that heavier percentage of peat for growing plants beyond the starter stage. Pine bark mulch seems controversial in terms of being used in a veggie garden and I suppose it might not be helpful in every situation and every climate. However, I have used it in years when I couldn't find much hay to use as mulch, and I loved it. It looked wonderful, didn't wash away in heavy downpours and didn't cause me any problems. I read a magazine article once that I think was written by a Texas gardener who was coping with high clay content...as in almost pure clay. Defying the conventional wisdom, he routinely rototilled huge amounts of pine fines and pine mulch (the smaller pieces, not the gigantic ones) into his clay and had huge improvement in a pretty fast time frame. He didn't even state whether he added additional nitrogen to compensate for whatever nitrogen is depeleting as the bark decomposes, but he had enormous soil improvement and was very pleased. His article made me smile because I had started adding some pine mulch to my soil about 3 years before and hadn't noticed any problems and also had huge improvement. For me, the amazing thing is how fast the mulch rototilled into soil breaks down. If I rototill it into soil in January or February, it is largely gone by the following winter. Only a few pieces that were larger than average to begin with will remain a year later. I started adding the pine mulch because so much of my compost was disappearing every year (as the old saying goes, "heat eats compost") and it seemed like I just couldn't add enough to the red clay to fix it. And, I should add, that my red clay is flower pot clay---I believe I could wet it down and work with it and make flower pots---so it takes massive amounts of improvement to make it workable. I wouldn't necessarily add pine bark to fairly normal soil. Having never had fairly normal soil, though, I use lots of pine. This year I added vast amounts of pine fines and humus to one 8' x 4' raised bed that had amended clay that just was not well-amended enough for potatoes. I then immediately planted the potatoes. That was probably in late January or very early February. Those potato plants are growing incredibly well and are about to flower. By contrast, the four long rows of potato plants planted at the west end of the main garden are 1/3 their size and a lot way from flowering. Those were planted in an 8" deep trench and I covered the seed potatoes with a couple of inches of soil, and then continued to add soil as they grew until the trenches were filled in. It really isn't even fair to compare the performance of potatoes in a raised bed to those in grade-level beds, but it is such a striking difference that I cannot believe it. I do think heavy, heavy rain that filled those trenches with water for several days likely had a negative impact on the potatoes and slowed them down. Clearly I need to add a gazillion tons of pine bark fines and compost to the west end of the veggie garden before next season. It is a sandier-clayier loam than the rest of the veggie garden, but no matter how much compost I add to it, it still seems like it isn't as improved as the heavier clay. I usually grow either sweet potatoes or potatoes there, but then find the soil rock-hard at digging time. It probably is the least-improved soil in which I grow veggies because it started out in better shape than the clay, so I kind of ignored it and didn't amend it nearly as much. Now that the rest of the soil is so much better than the west end, I need to work on the west end a lot to bring it up to speed. Susan, I'm sorry you couldn't get the soccer goal. That would have been so perfect. I find so many interesting things at garage sales that can be used in the garden. I got a wooden ladder for $3 once, painted it a medium purple, and now grow purple hyacinth beans on it. It is just the coolest-looking thing when you see only hints of the purple ladder peeking out through all that bean foliage and flowers. Mommyrosalyn, You're welcome and be sure to let us know what you end up with and how they do for you. That's how we all learn from one another. I did forget to list one favorite (not hard to do when you have 100 or 200 favorites) that doesn't get a lot of attention but which does produce very well in our climate, and it is one called Fantastic. There's also an improved version of it called Super Fantastic. I actually prefer Fantastic, which I have to raise from seed myself because I usually don't see it in stores, but I see Super Fantastic in stores pretty often. When you are tomato shopping in chain stores or nursery chain stores watch for tomato plants from Chef Jeff. That particular line carries oodles of heirlooms. However, if you can shop at The Tomatoman's Daughter or at any of the festivals where Duck Creek Farms sells heirloom tomato plants (see link to Duck Creek Farms website below---their schedule of farmer's market and festivals is available there), then any variety they sell likely would please you. Dawn Here is a link that might be useful: Duck Creek Farms

I know how all of you feel who did not receive rainfall yet in July and who are suffering from severe rain deficits this year. Last July we did not receive any rain at all, and it was much hotter then than it is now. It was horrible. I hope rainfall relief arrives soon. Carol, That's the driest I've ever seen it in your part of the state and Scott's and Dorothy's as well. Y'all are having my typical drought conditions, but in an area used to a whole lot more rainfall than my plants ever dream of having, even in a good year. I would imagine that makes drought much worse for your permanent plantings since they are used to abundant moisture most years. Heather, I've noticed your area, and the Norman area as well, are incredibly dry this summer. Scary dry. You doing ok there? I cannot imagine being pregnant in this heat, and I hope you're staying inside and staying cool and comfortable. I thought I'd throw in this comment since mosquitoes often follow rain. Yesterday the local news media reported we had a confirmed case of West Nile Virus in Carter County. The woman was treated and recovered. She was lucky. They've already had some WNV-related deaths in the D-FW Metroplex this year, where the WNV is at what they are calling almost epidemic levels. Since I am closer to DFW than OKC, I've been following the WNV progression very closely as it has moved our way. The Carter County case was the eighth WNV case in Oklahoma so far this year. I worked outside this morning early, but as soon as a mosquito started buzzing around, I came back inside. Remember Jay's words of wisdom every time rain has missed his area these last 4 years of drought in Kansas. He always says that today he's one day closer to rainfall than he was yesterday. I repeat those words to myself when we're in the midst of a dry spell here. Even in the worst of drought years, rain does fall. It just doesn't fall when we want it to. Hang in there. I've linked the 'last 30 days' rainfall map. Look at the pattern of the rainfall--mostly around some of the edges of the state, especially in SE OK which still is desperately dry despite the rainfall. There's a nice little wet spot SW of OKC where there's been good rain, but otherwise the interior areas of the state really haven't had the rainfall. Dawn Here is a link that might be useful:

Hi all, Finally finding time to get back here to post! MISTY -- I can't be sure because of the wide color variation, but I believe your first hen & chicks pic is of 'Icicle', and the second pic looks like the one I call C to me. I'm fairly sure on both of them, but would need to see "spring" pics to be positive! I have you down for the things you asked for, and let me know for sure about the 'Icicle', but if yours usually looks like the pics I'm gonna post below in late spring, you already have 'Icicle'. BARB -- you're covered on the 'White Nugget'! POLYGONUM -- could you possibly snip a handful of yellow iceplant cuttings off of yours for Misty and Lesuko? Most of mine suddenly died off last year--as I've warned folks can happen!--and while I could get "some" cuttings off of mine, they're really "wimpy" looking right now, and it sounds like yours is doing really well and would provide better cuttings! If that doesn't work for you, let me know and I'll bring some of my wimpy ones! Let me know if you had time to check out your semps! A couple of them I only got one "batch" of, so they're already spoken for, but I still have A, E, G, H, K, and 'Icicle'. Gonna post some pics of 4 of them below! LESUKO -- I have you down for one of everything I posted above--with the yellow iceplant from either Polygonum or me! I have LOTS of cuttings for most of the sedums, so, except for a couple of them, I'll have a really nice bagful of each for you--along with the directions for what to do with them! Will also bring a nice big bunch of the bare root Ajuga for each of the first three, and will have at least a couple starts for the 'Black Scallop'. Also the hen & chicks--with directions, the 'White Nugget' iceplant, and I haven't done them yet, but probably a start for the Turkish Veronica. Virtually everything I have this time is ground covers, so it won't really get anything going on in your yard vertically, but it will help to fill up some of the bare soil, and you can always dig them up later and give them away to somebody else when you get around to planting other things! With your strawberry runners, no, they don't need to be attached for them to root, so snip some off and bring them along! All you need to do is "tuck" the bottom of the offshoot into the soil and let it root so they don't really don't really need the "runners" attached, but if there's some runner left on it, it can be used to help "anchor" it into the soil until it roots, so you might want to snip them with some of the runner still attached. Don't know how many you have, but you might want to make up a/a few "little batches" of them for "picking." I also have 11 "perennial" things in pots, like I mentioned above, and while some of them are just rooted pots of the sedums I posted above, there are a couple things I didn't post--and I'm gonna keep them secret till the swap--but I know folks are gonna want them! :-) And I also dug/pulled some bare root "something else" today that I'll have three "batches" of--and I'm not gonna tell you what it is! They're currently residing in the vegetable drawer in my fridge--since they're bare root! Oh! And also got a really good batch of seeds from one of my perennials this year that I seldom have enough to give away--is that an illiterate sentence or what?--so I made up some seed packets to bring of "that," and one other thing that folks are usually interested in! And that's probably it for this time! I'm not a big fan of Cold Hands Gardening, so I probably won't be poking around out there looking for things anymore--gonna try to get the Ajuga dug/pulled tomorrow, hopefully before the front moves in! And, since it's gonna be cold out by Thursday, I collected the hen & chick starts today and I was able to get more of some of them than I thought I would! Since only one person has expressed any interest so far, and since there are probably only gonna be about 6 folks at the swap, I'm gonna post a few more pics of the ones I have more than one "batch" of, so even if you don't ask for them in advance you can look to see if there are any you'd like to get on the day of the swap. As you can see from these pics, the color varies GREATLY depending on the time of the year and the winter temps in any particular year! I'm just posting the small version of the pics, but they should all be clickable to see the bigger versions! A - I have 4 batches that aren't spoken for E - I have 5 batches that aren't spoken for K - I have 4 batches that aren't spoken for - winter color - summer is all "blue spruce" color! 'Icicle' - I have 5 batches that aren't spoken for A few more pics! I really do have a lot of most of the sedum cuttings! Sedum 'Tricolor' in summer and winter color on the right side of the second pic Sedum 'Angelina' summer and winter colors Sedum album - the Dangerous One! Plain green in summer, this is winter! Sedum reflexum 'Blue Spruce' - same in summer & winter! Sedum pachyclados - same color summer & winter! Sedum 'Dragon's Blood' - Plain green in summer - this is where the name comes from! (Don't have a whole lot of this one!) And two of the Ajugas! 'Royalty' 'Chocolate Chip' Don't have a good pic of 'Arboretum Giant' but it's pretty much plain green leaves that are about twice as big as the 'Royalty'! And not gonna post a pic of the 'Black Scallop' or everybody will want some--and I don't have a whole lot--yet! Not gonna bring a lot of the Ajugas unless I know somebody wants them! Will bring a couple "bunches" in addition to the one of each that's already promised, so if you want more, let me know! Skybird P.S.!!! Almost forgot this one! Delosperma basuticum 'White Nugget'