Hi, lauramg8 I'm looking for mostly shade plants. I need to fill an area between my house and driveway. It is fairly steep and shaded by my neighbor's house and a very large oak. The shrubs and bushes that are there now are not doing well. They are leggy and have fungi growing on them. Over all, they just don't look healthy. There is no ground cover so every time it rains some soil is washing down onto the driveway. The roots on a couple of the dogwoods are more visible now than a couple of years ago. I'm not quite sure what I'm looking for since I am new to gardening. I do know that I would like to plant things for the wildlife e.g. food for butterflies, bees, and birds. -Tina

This may be time consuming but the first defense against hornworm is locating the eggs..every evening I inspect the leaves (underneath) so many leaves to inspect so ya are gonna miss some..I do..the Hawk Moth is the culprit...the big parent..4-5 inches wing width..biggern...she usually comes out in the late evening to lay the eggs under the leaves. I saw only 2 last year and took care of them early....stomp. I don't really know is there is a prime time for the Hawk Moth to lay the eggs because this year in late March I killed one laying eggs on the young maters still in their cups awaiting transplant. Right now the plants are thriving and I do my usual inspection fer pests so far so good. As far as planting distance I can see why ya had a jungle...in the future I would do a good 3 foot for determinate and even more for indeterminate.. Second question..Brandywines (3 species something like that)..aint had good luck with them (because of my region) though others have. I have heard they are at the top of the heirloom maters in taste but are finicky about conditions. There are several peeps out there that have grown BW in success.. Happy gardening.. p.s if ya see a hownworm carrying a lil sack of eggs on it's back..ya can kill it quick, or let it die a slow death because the parasitic wasp has already laid it eggs on it..the babies eat it.

I see my post caused a bit of a stir. First, we live in Canada so the benefits of an LLC are not applicable here. In Canada, we can set up a business as a sole proprietorship, partnership, or incorporation. With both sole and partner, the individual(s) personal income and assets are liable if the business goes south. In incorporating, personal is separate from business. Ultimately, incorporating is most beneficial. However, we decided to go for a partnership and for a couple of reasons. One, we don't foresee making oodles of money in our first year. Secondly, we will invest our own money into the business. And because our income and business are interlinked in a partnership, any moneys we use (income and profits) will help lower our tax (that's the general idea). Our plan is to throw all profits right back into the business. Doing this will show we are actually "losing" money and so the amount of taxes we will pay will be lower. Once enough money is made so that we can let go of our 9-to-5 jobs and focus solely on our business, we will then switch from partnership to incorporation. First thing we did when dreaming up this concept was to secure an accountant and have been following his advice.

Males trash-talking each other, defending females or family. Quail start with bonded pairs (or trios of one female and 2 males). While the pairs are getting matched up (early spring) there's a lot of this flappy-jumpy behavior. Then you see the pairs or trios strolling around. When you see mostly solo males in late spring you know the females are brooding. Then you see the family - the bonded adults and their chicks. These often have a preferred feeding path through the territory, with one family following another. The younger the chicks, the more defensive the males are against other males. It appears to me that the female controls the chicks and the male or males fend off predators and other quail. Lots of quail confronting quail at some feeding spots. Then they collect onto merged family groups - you will see various ages of chicks and several adults - called a covey. These often have a preferred feeding path through the territory, with one covey following another. Less defensive behavior. By early spring, the chicks are mature and it starts all over.