Cat, I'm SO EXCITED FOR YOU! This has been one of the BEST threads for learning, and MissSherry is such a great teacher because she provides us with not only narrative information, but visual information as well. Sometimes it's hard for me to comprehend a plant unless I actually SEE it. And you were going to look at the ranch and VOILA! You have ALs - I just can't believe it! I'm so happy for you! I'll be doing the YIPPEE DANCE today for you! I've been looking all over the internet at weed and native plant photos to ID my plants, and I think I've finally come to the conclusion they are some kind of plaintain that grows in lawns and yards a lot. No matter - I'll keep the plaintain to see if the Buckeyes show up. It is more green, but the stems are tomentose (hairy). Not likely cudweed because the leaves (kind of spoon shaped) are green both back and front, with little hair on them. The midvein looks slightly pink to red as well. Sometimes it makes me dizzy looking at all the photos for a long time, but I've found some great ID sites along the way that I've saved in my Favorites. Susan

@Tracey Fry, this looks just like my tree! The droplets of water I believe are collected to make perfumes, likely they press the whole flower bud and those droplets too. I believe they are coming from the interior flower. Once the flower blooms and doesn't set fruit pull it all apart you will see what I'm saying. I have done this to the ones that are not female & male, but simply male flower parts and there are little water droplets or sticky secretions inside the flower, towards the bottom where fruit should have been. OK this is a second post or the first post about this on my Etrog tree (citron) that I have been having issues with. I forgot to update this thread as well. I now am seeing flowers that are fully functional on my citron. I am watching fruit begin on it now. So far I have 4 flowers that are setting fruit. I will grab pics & upload them from my other computer's hard drive in a few.

Hi Helenh, The poppies are at the Xeriscape Garden at S National Ave & E Linwood, just south of the Springfield Art Museum on the west side of National. There are lots of things in bloom there. Ornamental alliums should be coming on around now too there. The Botanical Center & Gardens has now tied the two parks together to form one park called Nathanael Greene:Close Memorial Park which is inclusive of the total 114 acres. The Conifer Garden is tucked away so the maps below will help. You can view this interactive map to find the gardens and read descriptions of each. You can also download this map of the park and print it out.

Thank you everyone for your helpful advice! Unfortunately, this is not the answer I wanted but am glad to have such great input before spending even more money to put something new there that will also not thrive. The good news is everything else (so far) that has been planted in our landscaping surrounding our home has survived and is thriving that I can tell. Although I am interested in learning more about gardening, at this time I feel all this work is more than I bargained for and it won't be happening for a while as it sounds very time consuming. I appreciate the time everyone took to explain the proper procedure that things should be done in the future! Maybe someday i'll get my peonies. :)