Hi Rae. I'm afraid I have to concur with most of the other people you've talked to. I bought 'Limerock Ruby' and 'Limerock Passion' Coreopsis two years in a row and they died each year. One year they were planted in full sun. So the second year I tried Part sun. Neither worked. I planted mine in a bed which is a large mound (about 5 feet diameter and 2 feet high at the center. Soil is good and water drains well in this bed so I don't think drainage or staying too damp was the issue. The plant was mulched in summer and winter. Don't know if this hurt it or helped it but I am not buying either one again. Maybe someone else has had better luck though. Hope that helped. Sincerely, Squirrellypete

Christie, why dig them? Mine come back every year with just a shredded leaf mulch on them over winter. I store the cannas in their dirt in the garage or under the bench in the cold place in the greenhouse. This year I just lifted the whole root balls out of the 4 pots and am storing them all together in a huge pot. The colors will stay separated that way, I hope. The caladiums don't all make it, but I've read you can store them in perlite. I might try that this year. Sunny

I can relate as far as my annuals, perennials, and tropicals. It has just been a year of "survival" until next year. What's been heppening in the garden? Nothing - that sums it up. A very limited number of butterflies and moths. The few I had were the fruit, dung, sap eating butterflies, because I fed them. The tropicals bloomed well because they can tolerate the heat and humidity. But, there are no big butterflies to nectar on them. The heat prevented a lot of bloom on my plants. Just got too hot, too fast, for them to bloom well. This last break from the heat - a short one - has at least produced more blooms on my sole tomato plant, and hopefully they will get pollinated to produce tomatos in fall. The best plants in the garden for flowering? Pyramid Bush (in the Chocolate family), a very pretty little bright pink flowering tropical; Dwarf Red Porterweed (tropical), Gerbera daisy (red/orange), Datura, Flame Acanthus - this plant just keeps on going and nothing bothers the flowers or the foliage, I love it! - Maximilian Sunflower; Golden Crownbeard; David Verity Cuphea, and Tropical Milkweed. My Verbena bonariensis, which is normally a very prolific blooming plant, has had some kind of foliage disease this year that turns the plant foliage white, and it hasn't produced near the blooms in normally does. Those it does produce don't last very long at all. The Southern Pink Moth has all but decimated my Salvias this year, and some kind of little leaf-cutting, petiole cutting caterpillars have demolished the Morning Glories. I like caterpillars, but not those that are destructive and appear in such large numbers it is literally impossible for an organic gardener to fight. It is so strange - I have a Packman broccoli that has never produced a head, but is still growing and hasn't bolted yet. ????? Even the Zinnias are not producing as well as they should, few blooms, and wonky stems. I have kept the garden watered as well as possible, and am hoping the fall will turn things around, altho I keep hearing extended weather predictions of a very warm fall. We'll see. I feel very bad for all of you who put so much work into your vegetable gardens only to have them burn up in this heat and drought. My heart just melts for you guys! Susan

There are areas around here that are stunningly beautiful and look like a postcard with rolling farm hills and red barns. It's about 10 minutes from where I am. There are also lots and lots of orchards up higher toward the mountains. You can also go way up to Mt Spokane and ski in winter. The town is divided somehow into 4 places. There's West where the AFB is and its mostly plains areas, the South area is up on a rocky hill and it has great views and horrible driving in winter, the North side is more crowded, smaller lots, poorer area unless you get way out North toward Deer Park and its just really really beautiful. Farms everywhere and red barns and rolling hills and roads that wind up into the hills. So way out of town about half an hour after you break traffic it gets really pretty. We live in the Eastern part of town which is called the Valley. It's huge. There is East Valley, West Valley, Central Valley and Greenacres which is where we are. We are 10 minutes or less from Idaho border. This area, this little strip on one side of Appleway (named for the apple orchards) is like in another dimension. It feels like the 1950's, there's lots of people working on older cars, there's horses around behind my house, the lots are huge. I mean really really huge. And they're uneven, so one house might have an entire acre behind it, and the next one further into town might have 2/3 of an acre so it's split up oddly, but the lots are more like acreage. There's no small lots unless you run into those awful communities that so many people love that I can't stand where all the houses look alike, they tell you the color to paint your house, and you have to get permission to plant stuff. Just not my style. There are locked communities just outside town on all 3 sides for people who live in mansions I suppose, just not my style. I've always loved farmhouses, we've rented lots of them, fixed them up, moved into other farm houses, fixed them up, and then I finally got this one one such a nice lot. It's double fenced because of the horses. Horse people do not like your dogs running back and forth along the fence barking when they're working their horses, so we fenced halfway back where the forest of trees are, and shut out the back pasture, which has only 1 tree and its open. That's the one that really needs development with landscaping and it has to fit into this area. So nothing modern, stuff like grapes along the fencing, it's cattle fencing with old posts back there that are likely 100 years old. I'm growing food gardens back there now, but I want a golden curls willow back there, and somehow a Queen Anne Cherry tree starting growing on the North leftside. I consider myself and our family really lucky even though the houses are small. They were mostly built 1920's or after. Ours was the first one, they're all small 2 bedroom 1 bathroom with mother in law setups out back and then pasture land. The taxes are through the roof, it's the black soil, and the schools. It's really high, and its all worth it to me. Plus the whole street is treed out front over the street, so this street itself is just gorgeous. People walk their dogs and sometimes horses down the street. We are indeed lucky. Lots of people have chickens, everyone has dogs, some have up to 5 dogs, cats are everywhere because of the barns, and horses. Also, apparently there are porcupines and skunks. My neighbor said "they really love your jungle over there". funny