Laine - 1. Welcome 2. You need information: Sunset's "Western Garden Book", and ask your local library for the water department's publications. If you can find it, Mary Irish's "Gardening in the Desert Southwest" is a good month-by-month guide. 3. Soak (by hand) the potato plant thoroughly and it might revive. 4. Check the timer for the drip system. If the power has gone off, they often reset for 5 minutes a day, every day. A more reasonable timing is an hour or so, twice a week. 5. We don't do much except weed and mow for the next couple of months ... and PLAN. Late September kicks off the gardening season (like April in CO). Work on identifying the plants, decide what you want to change, if anything, and don't kill yourself in the heat. "potato plants": http://www.desert-tropicals.com/Plants/Solanaceae/Lycianthes_rantonnei.html http://www.desert-tropicals.com/Plants/Solanaceae/Solanum_jasminoides.html Here is a link that might be useful: gardening tips

Tavimh - metal halide for growth, rooting, & produces decent blooms. Hps for inflo onset. Me personally, I'd go for a high quality led, they are more expensive up front, but cheaper over the long haul. They provide a superior light spectrum to either of the previously mentioned lights! If you go this rout......be ware of cheep Asian knockoffs, they're all over ebay! The closer your light cycle is to 24hrs on, the better they will do! Peace & happy growing, Jason

Am I correct in thinking you are talking about hand x-stitch or hand embroidery rather than by machine? I am in California, but am originally from England and am still in touch with some of my old school friends. One friend has an adult daughter that is really into cross stitch by hand. If you are interested in emailing me I will try to get some info for you? Use the "My Page" to send the email by my name.... Pat

Leslie, I was at O'Tooles yesterday and saw the bush we brought. On our original plant list it is shown as a Black Chokeberry, Aronia Melnanocarpa. I should have trusted the info and put that on the tag. I took pictures of the O'Tooles plant and the tags, shown below. Turns out you can use the berries for jams and jellies! Who knew? I don't actually remember the berries, but we have so many different bushes that berry I simply may not have noticed. Our plant list shows 2 were originally planted in the area we are taking them out. Given that it pretty much stayed in place. We controlled it by cutting down the suckers but they generally stayed within a few feet of the plant and it did not spread itself all over or into the yard. Also pretty much stayed out of the rock bed nearby so I consider it pretty well behaved. Ours did get about 6 ft tall but stayed a pretty shallow clump of a couple of feet deep while it spread width wise. But then it started as two plants that grew together.