Yes I agree, that white one with the green throat and a bit of green veining is remarkable - good contrast with the yellow anthers. Of course they're all pretty, and the bargain is a great find. Alana

Larry, It is amazing how fast you go from wet to dry soil, but it happens with our clay soil too, so I understand it. Emma, Look for products labeled worm killer or caterpillar killer at any big box store, nursery or farm store. Then, check the label and it should list Bacillus thuringensis 'kurstaki' (often abbreviated as Bt or as Bt 'kurstaki') as the active ingredient. Be careful which plants you spray it on. I try to avoid spraying it on any of the flowering plants that I have planted for the butterflies because I don't want to kill them. I'll link a photo of one such product, but there are many brands available. Mia, As far as I know, cutworms will eat anything, but prefer young, tender vegetation like young vegetable, herb or flower seedlings. I have seen them attack some surprisingly large plants at times. If you have army worms, which often seem active at about the same time, they'll eat any part of the plant. I found an army worm at the top of a 3' tall potato plant eating the top-most leaves. Emma, We have oodles of birds here too. Our hummers have been eating us out of house and home, but I am not complaining. At first I put up two feeders and then kept adding more as more and more birds showed up. We're up to six hummingbird feeders now and my days often start with me making a batch of nectar first thing in the morning to refill the feeders. This is a really good hummingbird year so far. Actually, it is a great bird year. In addition to the ones you mentioned, we have lots of blue jays, mockingbirds, scissortails and phoebes. The purple martins have babies in the houses and I love listening to them chirping right outside my garden shed. We have put in a new vegetable garden out back so I have more room for more stuff. I am planting a specific section of it for the hummers and butterflies, and already have planted a 'Bubba' desert willow, 'Balboa Sunrise' trumpet creeper to climb the fence, and several lantanas back there for the butterflies and hummingbirds, along with many other flowers, veggies and herbs, It is amazing how fast the hummingbirds found the hummingbird feeder in the new garden....probably within an hour of me hanging it there. It is roughly 100' from the next closest feeder. The butterflies found the new lantana plants about 2 minutes after I took the plants out of the car. I had to shoo the butterflies away long enough to get the plants put into the ground. Dawn Here is a link that might be useful: Example: Caterpillar Killer with Bt 'kurstaki'

PLANT ID TAGS: I usually order the special-deal-of-the-day at Pettags4less http://www.pettags4less.com/aluminum-tags/single-sided.html#isPage=1 if it's their large circular aluminum one, their shield-shaped one or their large heart one. These are sturdy aluminum pet I.D. tags which are laser-engraved on one side with the plant name. I find that the black colored ones show the plant name best. They are very reasonable at $2.29 each. Much cheaper than those machines found at Petco pet stores. The pretty copper anodized aluminum stakes are 9" tall tent stakes from Amazon.com. http://www.amazon.com/Coghlans-1000-4-Count-9-Inch-Ultralight/dp/B0030OLMWI/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1430454515&sr=8-4&keywords=aluminum+tent+stakes Amazon offers many brands of essentially the same tent stake, in different colors and some are slightly different in design, but this one gets the job done. I then get some stainless steel key rings and put the key ring through the hold in the tent stake after removing the white cord which comes there (meant to facilitate pulling the tent stakes out of the ground).

PHM is one of the ramblers I really like. I hope it fully recovers. Mine is stil very young and competing with very water and nutrient efficient native plants under unfavarobale conditions. I hope it will manage to grow.