We also love to eat the blossoms! We try to plan a dinner party to coincide with bloom time each spring and serve each person a blossom floating on a cold soup. I love them on cucumber-yogurt-garlic soup, or here is a fun recipe for a cold asparagus soup my hubby dreamed up: http://www.hungryagain.net/?p=43 Notice the chive blossom in the picture? That is actually a half blossom, floating cut side down because our dinner was a little early that year. I love the potato salad idea; we will definitely try that one this year!

Hi Cliss! No they don't smell off...They're just turning really pale from the bottom up and are looking really weak. I am going to water them when dry for a while and check if the roots regain their color and strengthen up again. That's great you have a variegated in hydro and doing well! Fingers are crossed Cliss! Mine apparently were doing great with the extra water...They were putting up new pups, all looked great from the top. Oh well... Take care Cliss! Hi Karen! Thank you for letting us know that yours still have good color in hydro! I have mine in small pumice stones instead of leca stones, the pot might be retaining too much water for passive hydro... Maybe the roots are too suffocated with the small pumice and all the water... I am going to change the pumice to a larger size and ease on the watering for a while. After the roots strengthen I might give passive hydro another shot with the larger pumice stones and see if it makes a difference... Thank you Karen! Take care!

Ok now we have something to talk about. First the crane flies will die soon and not return until next March. The more of them you have in your house the fewer there are laying eggs in your garden, so...just sayin'. Personally I ignore them and let them die where they die. My daughter, on the other hand, wants to move away when she sees a bug in the house. So I have to put up with her screaming. She's graduating this year, so she'll soon be gone. Mosquitoes are an issue. They breed in ANY body of water. They can breed in the cut off tops of bamboo, inside a coiled hose with water in it, any pond or bucket of water, rain gutters that are blocked or do not fully drain, or anything else that holds water. Drain everything you have control over and encourage your neighbors to drain anything that might hold water. If you have to leave a dog watering bowl out, we went with a 5-gallon bucket and put a piece of mosquito dunk in it. Those dunks really work to prevent mosquitoes as well as helping to keep the bucket clean from mold. I'm a little ahead of you with raking oak leaves. We're getting to the tassle stage so looking forward to no more raking. Watering, mowing, and fertilizing will work. You don't need a catalog of lawn care products to shop with. But you do have "clover" and dollar weed to deal with. Both of those pull out extremely easily if you catch them early. If you have real clover, then it doesn't but the oxalis/black medic with the yellow flowers does pull out easily. Or you could try the blue bottle spray pictured above. Just spot spray first to see if your St Aug dies. It can be sensitive to some weed killers and amazingly tolerant of others. If it survives a week without browning out, then you likely don't have Floratam St Aug. If you have floratam, then you have to go with the black bottle and purple label stuff. Read the label very carefully if you have to use that. The label says not to walk through it so you have to go backwards and end up at the faucet to turn the hose off. Then you're likely stuck there, so plan your spray route. Also you can only use is once or twice a year. Choose your time carefully. Be sure you have all the weeds up and growing - then blast them. The killing effect takes several weeks, so be patient. Spraying again soon after the first spray is a waste of time, money, and is against the lawn of the label. Spot spray as much as you can to just kill the weeds in the immediate good turf. Then let the St Aug spread. Repeat next year. General St Aug care...Water deeply and infrequently. This is the same for all grass. Deeply means 1 full inch every time you water. Infrequently means no more than once per week with temps in the 90s. That means ALL SUMMER. If you get temps in the 100s with low humidity, then water every 5 days. Infrequently also means once every 2 weeks with temps in the 80s. You're not there yet. It means once every 3 weeks with temps in the 70s. That's about where you are now. If it rains, delay watering until the grass looks like it's getting dry. Mulch mow every week when the grass starts growing. ALWAYS mow at the mower's highest setting. ALWAYS. There is never any reason to mow St Aug lower than the highest setting. Weld your mower at the highest setting so your spouse or neighbor kid doesn't try to do you a favor and mow it low. Fertilize three times a year with synthetic if you want to use synthetic. First would be Memorial Day, then Labor Day, then Thanksgiving. If you want to use organic fertilizer, then you can do that any time. If you go with organics, don't listen to the Dirt Doctor from Dallas. He has good organic intentions, but he will sell you waaaaaayyyy more stuff than you really need. He's a salesman and pushes product. All you need is a bag of corn meal, corn gluten meal, or alfalfa pellets (rabbit chow). If you're doing organics right it will be inexpensive, easy, and like autopilot. If you listen to the DD, he'll have you at the nursery every weekend picking up some formulation of compost tea, molasses, or whatnot. You don't need it. That's all there is to it. If you want the nicest lawn on the block, or if you're having problems with getting the green color you want, then get your soil tested at Logan Labs in Ohio. Forget about TAMU tests. The $25 test at LL is much better than $50 worth of testing at TAMU. The simple tests at TAMU are comparatively unhelpful. Read some of the soil test threads here at this forum and check out the type of reply they get from morpheuspa. He's a soil test genius and will grace you with the benefit of his knowledge for the price of admission - free.

I do like the own root idea but to get so many plants so cheaply grafting is the only way to go. Own roots are better in the long run. Own root roses are far better than the grafted ones. No suckers to worry about but with all good, there is bad. Some of the wild root stock is hardier and can take more disease and bug infestations. So like life, it is a trade off.