Can I jump in here and ask some questions to Al? Al, you seem to be the guy to ask, as you are quiet insistent on not watering from above. I use soaker hoses extensively on my beds, only a few do not have them. This year, we have had a drought here in Missouri, and literally went almost 6 weeks without any rain. I know it is not good for the environment and for farmers, but it has been great for growing flowers! IF, that is, the flower grower has soaker hoses. If not, it has been a summer from hell for gardeners using watering cans or hoses. Almost all of my plants have grown uniformly, couldnt have been any more perfect, and I think all the success has been due to my being able to totally regulate watering and fertilizing. The only time the tops of my plants have gotten wet was when I would fertilize. And then.............the rain from Hurricane Dennis came.........and it stayed for two weeks streight. And now, I have all kinds of fungal problems. My question to you is (Al), do you practice any means of "extreme gardening" to keep rain off your flowers? I mean, I know you cannot control what goes into the ground, but some kind of effort to keep flowers from getting spoiled? For example: petunias. I detest what rain does to the flowers. I, personally, prefer the non-waves over the waves (though I love both), and am quite diligent with deadheading. However, all it takes is one rain shower to destroy the flowers, and then it is like starting all over again. Also, impatiens get destroyed by rain. I know you are going to think I am a complete fruitcake, but next year I am planning to build some kind of "umbrella" for certain areas of my beds. In fact, I already plan on building cages for certain areas to keep rabbits and other animals out at night time--these cages will be exclusively used at night time only. I love my petunias THAT MUCH. What I envision for the rain issue is, when anticipating a rain storm, simply put the cages on top an cover with plastic. Not tightly to seal out air, just to direct the rain off the flowers and foliage. Am I a complete loonatic here? Or has this been done before and is "old news"? Has anyone else ever considered this or actually done it?! Al, can you give me some tips for doing this? I'd appreciate you!

Thanks on both suggestions.

"I just know it's probably from the 1940's & most likely costume jewelry." You may be able to get big bucks for the stuff. Bakelite and Lucite vintage jewelry is quite collectible. Certain styles of the era are popular even it it is not true Bakelite. Google some of the places that sell it online and contact them. I would try to get another estate sale company in to go through things and see if there are any items worth it to be put up for auction. Do not rely on just that one estate sale company to give you advice. Way back when..........when my grandfather died, my mother did a bunch of rummage sales. It barely put a dent in the amount of stuff my grandfather had saved like a packrat. (Depression Era guy.) Then, my mom had someone come in to look at the stuff. This auction woman pawed through the stuff and found some valuable stuff that had gone unrecognized. For instance, my grandfather had a shoebox full of pens he had saved. My mom had put 50 cents on it for the rummage sales. No one bought it. The auction woman found a pen in there called *Big Red* from the late '20s and it sold at auction for a LOT of money. (This was before they reissued the reproductions) A little plastic box turned out to be an Art Deco celluloid cigarette holder. $$$$. A can opener was vintage Harley Davidson issue. It was sent to a store out East on consignment and fetched a pretty penny. I could go on and on. My point being that you could have treasure trove of collectibles. If you do not have the time or the knowledge of collectibles, have someone come in to look over the stuff again. There are places who will list things on eBay for you for a percentage of what it sells for. One persons junk is another man's treasure. My one cousin is always on the lookout at sale for old rusty, vintage tools she uses for decoration. She just cringes when at estate sales she is told "Oh yeah, we had a lot of old tools. They were all rusty and beat up, so we threw them out before the sale." Some things are only valuable to certain individuals. When my uncle died, there was an old, floor model radio in nice wood cabinet. My brother removed the guts from it and was going to use the nice Art Decor cabinet. Another cousin (who is into vintage radios) went ballistic finding this out, as it turns out the vacuum tubes that were tossed out and hauled away in the dumpster, were valuable to collectors who use them to recondition old radios, and worth waaaaay more that that crappy cabinet was. BTW, if there is a lot of stuff Goodwill and similar organizations will come to your house to pick everything up. They will give you a receipt for taxes.

Mike, As far as phals I'll repot anytime of year and I only change the media when I have to repot or divide. The phal in the picture above has been in the same spagh since the fall of 2019, I suspect I'll need to repot for aesthetic and media reasons in the next 6-8 months. As far as bark based plants, I use an orchiata mix that in my experience can last 2-3 years anyhow, so repotting is not done because of media breakdown usually. I gently pack spagh when I use it, I prefer a little large sponge rock in it if available. Here is the same phal as above, this morning with a few more blooms. It is hanging from a hook in the lip of the pot currently as it leans so bad it almost touches ground when sitting in pot straight. That's a leaf of another violacea to the front left, it has 1 fading bloom so not much to show. If you look closely the phal in the back is a mutant, the lip and bottom 2 petals fused on all blooms. It grows weird too, so some kind of genetic mutation. I like the oddness and floriferous (6 spikes currently) of it so I keep it around. Bob