riversurf, if you would like to prolong Rudbeckia's blooming season, I would like to suggest that you add R. triloba to your garden. It is a biennial and the last Rudbeckia to bloom in my garden and lasts until September. Mind you, R. triloba reseeds most prolifically for me. This Rudbeckia is much taller with flowers much smaller than any other R. If you would like to try it, I will save some seeds for you. I cut off 'Goldsturm' spent blooms because I don't want anymore 'Goldsturm' in my garden, but leave R. hirta alone until the seedheads are completely dry, they I snap them off and spread them all over my garden. Their bright face always cheers me up every summer. Funny you should say that goldfinches would eat green Echinacea seeds, debarron. I just saw a little yellow finch fly off my full bloom Echinacea yesterday. I didn't realize they would eat fresh seeds. I never had any Echinacea seeds to spread around anyway because goldfinches do the job for me. I have Echinacea seedlings coming up everywhere in my garden.

Normally House Finches winter over in this area but for reasons known only to the birds, they all disappeared in early December and are just now starting to return. According to the state Audubon Society Purple Finches winter here but they are cyclical. About once every decade we see an over abundance of them, but generally they are rare and in some years totally absent. I went back and did some additional research on the House Finch. It appears that they are really a non-native species that were originally kept as cage birds. A small number of them were accidentally released on Long Island,N.Y. in 1940 and they first appeared here in Ohio in 1964. By 1980 they had spread across the entire state of Ohio and have established a very successful breeding ground here. What I found most interesting in my research is the fact that the railroads are attributed with the wide spread of both House Finches and the European House Sparrow. Both species were initially released in the New York area. Having been introduced into an urban habitat they were initially unfamiliar with the local flora and fauna, and therefore relied heavily upon man made food sources. It is believed that many initially found the most abundant sources of food near warehouses or food processing plants where grain or other foodstuffs gets spilled from railroad cars during the loading and unloading process. Some of the birds were inadvertently closed up in the railroad cars when the doors were closed and they were transported to distant cities before the cars were opened again. This accounts for why their is an abundance of these birds in urban areas while they are often considered rare in rural areas.

Not to confuse you more, but before you cut, make sure you are making the blocks 6-1/2" square (not cutting 6", as you have written above). From your post I couldn't tell if you were planning on cutting each piece 2-1/2" x 6" then sewing together. An easier way is to cut 2-1/2" strips width of fabric, then sew the light, medium and dark long strips together. Measure to be sure it is 6-1/2", check your 1/4" seam allowance if it is smaller. Then cut every 6-1/2" so that each block measures 6-1/2" square (or 6" finished). Here is a link that might be useful: HGTV triple rail fence pattern

Your cactus is a hybrid, not the 'real' Christmas cactus, which is a species. The hybrids can bloom most any time, usually in the winter half of the year. They are commonly called holiday cactus. The hybrids can be manipulated by the commercial growers to bloom for whatever holiday they choose, and if you purchase one at a certain time, there is no guarantee it will bloom the same time for you. Whenever they bloom, they are certainly attractive. I've got one that was given to me by a friend that isn't all that big, but has multiple buds at each terminal, probably over one hundred. It is named, and should be in bloom by late this month or early May.