I live in nothern Sac. I am new to this state for planting and we are landscaping. I was just in Mexico and found the most beautiful Aubrey Christian Croton tree that I fell in love with. Can anyone in the area tell me if it will work in my yard. I would like to put one in a special corner of my yard. If not, I am open to suggestions of a beautiful tree. I am only in Sac Jan-May and Sept-Nov. so I would want it to look the best then. Eventually I will be here in the summer months. I found the actual plant name on line and now I cannot find the link for a photo, but I have a photo I can send someone of the tree I took a photo of. Thank you.

You probably have enough chilling hours. Call your local county extension service and ask for the average chilling hours where you live. 400 hours is considered minimum for consistent blooming. You will need to plant herbaceous peonies high enough that the buds for next years stems are not buried and are visible during the winter. Al

In my hot "mountain" (hill) neighborhood nearly everyone has good luck with Black Krim, Mortgage Lifter, Sungold and Sweet 100. I actually leave my plants in over the winter -- my best tomatoes here are from January-April. Then I plant the new ones in Feb or March for the following year while I harvest from last year's plants. That said, I'd like to have summer tomatoes... so... I bought a couple dozen of the heirloom tomatoes today at Green Arrow (L.A.) that laurel of http://www.heirloomtomatoplants.com/ said were tolerant at 95 degrees, or above. I had to go through and look for the little multiple sunshine icons on her site -- it's remarkable that she doesn't have a heat-tolerant page since she sorts them by every other characteristic. Here are some, from her site: "Does well in hight Altitude" - Azoychka, black cherry, black plum, carmello, fireworks, indigo blue berries, jutland, lime green salad, northern lights, sunset's red horizon, Santiago, sweet baby girl Sets fruit above 95, maybe to 98 - 1984, black-plum, cherokee-purple, cuostrolee, Florida91, Jutland, purple-haze-homegrown, Santiago, Sungold, Super-Souix, Sweet-baby-girl. Others. Sets fruit to 95: berkely tie dye, Black-Krim, black-plum, black-tazmanian, cherokee-chocolate, cherokee-purple, chocolate-amazon, chocolate-stripes, indigo blue berries, japanese-chocolate-truffle, southern-nights, mortgage-lifter. There are others if you look at her site, but I was looking for blacks and purples... I'm looking around for some of the specific "heat set" tomatoes thatwere developed specifically so they don't drop their blossoms above 95 -- so far this year I found "Hawaiian Tropic" at Armstrong. I'd REALLY like to find a Florida91 or a Santiago. I'm not sure how "high altitude" affects tomatoes, but I am on an Los Angeles "hilltop."

They're all coming along quite nicely and you have picked some real good ones. I've grown all that you have, except Goliath. Most, I'm sure as you know, have "late" DTM's. KB, Mexico, and GG were very late for me, 100+ days, so I hope your's come a bit earlier. The Brandywine's have been a challenge for me,and many other people, but are always in my garden each year. I grow BW Sudduth and BW Red (RL) and they produce well since I began shaking all my plants early in the AM during the hot months of Summer. It's made a huge difference over the last 3 years. Paul Robeson should be the first to ripen and CP and Carbon will follow. I would guess that you might see something in the mid to end of Sept. The bulk of them ripenng in Oct. and hopefully beyond. I've given seedlings to a gal that lives in Clairemont and works with my wife. She told me this morning that she hasn't had much luck growing tom's in the Fall, but DON"T let that discourage you with what you have going. I would suggest that you put your seedlings out as soon as possible, starting in a week or so. OUT of the wind and in the shade to start and slowly introduce them to the sun. There's plenty of info. here and elsewhere. I learned alot here: http://www.nctomatoman.topcities.com/nctomatomanWebPage.htm Drop me an email..it's available from "My Page" here at GW. Rob