Do the apricots seem to hold their color like the orange? I prefer pink colors but wasn't thrilled with how they faded. But the orange gets an A+. I've had to water other plants but not these guys. Received traded fire last year and some stayed fairly true and some turned a bit wild and grew more free form. There's also deep apricot I'll be trying next year. And FYI, for anyone looking to purchase seed (which tend to be a little pricey), Swallowtail Garden Seeds has all the colors but you need to look in the "bulk" section of their website. And the prices in the bulk section are more reasonable. Becky

I feel for you bpath. They can be such little stinks. Some of by cats never scratched a thing, but into adorable Siamese tore into everything. I tried catnip on scratch posts, catnip on cardboard -- you name it. I see a couple of solutions. Along the artsy lines, you could take some strands of yarn and attach them to a sort of header to hold them together and then I fix that to the areas that are already gobstoppers (I spoke the word gouged up, but out came gob stoppers – whatever they are). Then the cats can just enjoy the rest of their days playing with already cut sections of yarn and he could be a conversation piece. Yes, another conversation piece. Or you can take something like plaster of Paris or wax and form a sort of shell over that area - like a cast, but in color. You can paint it or add different colors of wax or clay. I just saw one of these amaryllis bulbs in a clay-like "pot" molded over the bulb. It looked great. I bet something like that could actually look kind of cool along the edge of your couch -- like a molded pottery patch. Then there is another solution.

Lars reminds me of when the announcers in Montreal would “correct” Jim Lefebvre's name. He says the Americanized “Leh-FEE-ver”. It's his name. One assumes that no matter the origin, the man knows how to say his own name. Re Jaques, I'd be glad to try to repeat your family's pronunciation, but I don't get your examples. M. Pepin says his name the way I'm used to hearing it in French. While I've heard Americans and Brits say a variety of things from Jack with a hard J, like Jack Warner, to something more or less like Pepin's but with the “a” voiced longer, I don't get the vowel from Jack vs. the vowel from Jock. M. Pepin uses a reduced vowel, like an "uh”. What I here most here is an "ah” sound, like in “father”. I have heard French speakers saying what is notated as æ, which is the vowel in cat. Other French speakers say it with an ah sound. The issue then is what happens when the speaker gives extra personality to the “uh” sound. That's where accents come in. There are more than half a dozen ways of saying this kind of an “a”, and as Cloudy Christine was saying, how you interpret that depends on what sounds you can differentiate. You can teach these coloration differences to adults—that's what dialect coaches do—but close enough is all most people can manage. I wouldn't get hung up on a vowel.

TW H, thanks for the suggestion for cutting Koko Loco early, but unfortunately, I don't really cut my roses for the vase much. But it's a great suggestion for those that do! Coincidentally, AaronRosarian posted yesterday that Wisconsin Roses had Stephen Rulo in stock, so I emailed Steve last night and got confirmation this morning that I will get Stephen Rulo! Flowers, I do like to put my weird colored roses together. Next to my big 4 weird colored roses, I have French Lace, Pat Austin, and Golden Celebration. Then Maria Shriver, an ultra-fragrant white. White is always nice for breaking up things. Then things go seriously downhill in terms of coordination in that particular area :-D