THE plant for dry shade--Geranium macrorrhizum--big Root Geranium. Semi evergreen, handsome groundcover, highly deer resistant, easy to control, very attractive with late spring bloom and no dead heading, dividing or other attention required. What more could you want? Alternate--Epimedium sulphureum--slower to fill in, must be cut back in late winter, but very attractive and has early bloom. If you garden in deer country, as I do, there is very little point in planting plants that deer love. It's a losing battle. And while it is true that starving deer will eat anything, there is a huge range of plants for both sun and shade that they generally have very little interest in. If your yard has mostly unappealing plants, they won't hang out there much. That said, I ALWAYS spray a new plant with a good repellant so if some young thing tries it, their first experience is YUCK! They spread the word. And having said all that, yes, I do have a few plants that deer will eat, and I do spray those. But they are very few, so keeping up with the spraying is not onerous and doesn't break the bank. However, I have NO hostas, yews, or tulips--the ones that say "Free Lunch".

I am enjoying your photos. I do wish warmer weather would come your way. I honestly don't know how those of you who live in frigid cold can bear it. It is 18 degrees here and I am frozen through, despite having the thermostat at 71. Brrr. It's snowing, too.

Wonderful, Konrad! Did you deliberately pile the cones there or just find them? The crossed bills really work to pull out the seeds, as designed. I've only see a White-winged Crossbill once and it was just perched quietly, not racing around feeding. You get all the great birds up there! Claire

We get them here in south central Illinois. We had one a couple years ago that stayed around about a year and a half then disappeared. We've had another one now for about 9 months. The odd thing is we only ever see just one, never a pair. They are busy little guys and hide a tremendous amount of seed.