I grew Valueseeds "Catchfly Ruby Flax" (aka: Thompson & Morgan #7058 Viscaria Occulata Cardinalis Ruby Flax) It performed wonderfully in my Zone 5, well-drained, nice loamy soil. It got twice the size of the state 12" height, and I had it planted en masse in about a 4-foot area. Light, airy, and beautiful, but like the first poster mentioned, they were relatively short-lived, going to seed in...I'd guess around 4 weeks.

Love to hear feedback just before the season starts! BTW everyone, I got up early yesterday, went out in the field where the boxes are, and I saw it! The flash of blue!!!! I observed BOTH a male and female bluebird catching INSECTS around 32 degrees! How the heck?! These birds never fail to amaze me! Actually 4-5 of them turned up! The male flew to one of my boxes and sang. Later the female flew up and went inside!! the male was squeeling up a storm! You could hear the excitement! Has anyone else ever noticed the encouragement from the male when the female checks out a box? The Swallows have a while to get here..late March. I also heard some HOSP. But the air in my neighborhood last morning was mainly filled with NATIVES singing, including Song Sparrows and Cardinals! The DRST got here today! I already have some places in mind, I just gotta do some shopping. I noticed that the elevator arm gets stuck if too much weight is put on it (Ex. if you hold it to the bottom) anything I should do? I appreciate the idea sharing!

Johnny, I wish we had had someone plow our entire property when we bought it, because then I would have done the same thing. As it is, I just dig it when I can and dispose of the roots in black trash bags. Despite the fact that my husband is our local fire chief and my son is a professional firefighter, we don't burn brush often. In fact, it probably has been 5-7 years since we've burned it. For most brush, I pile it up, hugelkultur-style on badly eroded areas, and keep adding to those brush piles for years, but I don't put Johnson grass roots there. Eventually the hugelkultur brush pile decomposes to the point that the once eroded area is now filled in with a rich compost/humus from the years of piling on the brush, and then the native plants return to that area on their own. If they don't, I collect seeds of native grasses and forbs from the pasture and scatter them over the newly healed area. It makes me happy to see once-eroded areas that featured ugly red clay eventually return to native grassland. Dorothy, I have let it grow on the west side of the new back garden for the same reason. I figured if the hoppers could stay there, maybe they'd bother the new garden less. I am not thoroughly convinced it worked. Once rain started falling in June last year, that stuff really started growing and hit about 8' in height. I hated it as it started to invade the garden, where I'd largely dug out all of it the year before. This year (and I haven't done it yet) I may try smothering it with black plastic held down to the ground with U-shaped staples sold for use with landscape fabric. I might be accidentally creating a snake haven underneath that black plastic, but the back garden has a major vole issue, so if snakes were living underneath that black plastic just outside the garden fence, then maybe they'd spend some time eating voles. That would be a win-win situation for me. However, what I fear will happen is that the Johnson grass will just move into the back garden even more. Scott, I think we ended up right where we were meant to be. I love this land and I love all the friends we've made here. It is a perfect fit for us, but I hate the Johnson grass. Everyone lets it grow and run wild here, so we'll never be rid of it. I just try to keep it out of the places on our property that we try to keep looking civilized. With the Johnson grass, and I cannot remember the exact details, but the prussic acid builds up after a particular set of circumstances occurs in a specific order. I think there's two or three different ways. George, Oh, you know how it is, everyone here lets livestock graze on it but then the experienced ranchers do know (most of the time) when to pull the cattle out of a pasture with a lot of Johnson grass so they can avoid the poisoning. It is when a rancher guesses wrong, or the cows escape their pasture and graze on Johnson grass alongside the road when they shouldn't that the cows die. They also cut and bale it as part of their hay crop, as you mentioned. I know that some of the stresses that can cause the poisoning include drought, freezing weather and excessive nitrogen in the soil. Oh, and excessive moisture. One of the most dangerous times for cattle is immediately after you've cut and baled it (usually the first cutting, which normally is in May here) when there is enough available nitrogen and enough soil moisture that the Johnson grass makes quick, lush growth. I believe that is what happened with the cases our vet saw last year on the day we were in his office. We'd finally had rainfall return here in a big way after months of drought, and everything grew like mad. Dawn

No, it wasn't 5 seconds! LOL Not even close! Plus, I had to wait for someone ahead of me and I waited until I nearly collapsed, probably 10-15 min, then got a wheelchair and sat in one for another 5-10 min anyway while she got hers. She even apologized for how long it was taking but I said it wasn't her fault. The machine in the video is like the one I used. The screen gave a progress report on a little line graph similar to installing software or updates on a computer. I watched as it was printing the label, probably 45 sec to a minute, then about the same as it was "applying label", releasing bottle took about a minute, then for it to actually drop the bottle probably took another minute. One prescription was 2 bottles. (Blister packs inside a prescription bottle. I was thinking at first it would be loaded from behind, in a secure area, but from the video, it's not. What a labor intense thing that would be! Can't tell if it automatically rotates stock or not, if not, you'd essentially need to remove all stock, then back-load the new items, counting what you have of old stock to put back, essentially 100 times, all the while it would be open and vulnerable to robbery. I suppose they might just close off the area to semi-secure it but if someone wanted it, it could be easy pickings and not even have the slowdown of a traditional pharmacy. As for security, the pharmacies at other hospitals I've seen are far more secure than this machine, especially considering low-staffing. The little hole with bullet-resistant glass with the shuffle tray and a heavy locked door for access to the people and drugs, plus a heavy locked door to enter the area anyway. Late night you'd get "buzzed" in. Lindsey_CA, not sure if the risk factor you mentioned is employee theft, but this to me is a much higher potential risk of a stocker slipping a bottle or two into a pocket. There may be electronic features of the machine to verify the number of bottles put in and it would have to match what's sent, etc, but there's also a quick substitution of an empty bottle possibility. I'd be much more confident of the security of the traditional pharmacy than the vending machine. The more I think of it, the more I like the idea of it as an option. However, I'm sure many on Medicare would not want to use it for the cost factor. I'm pretty sure it's more expensive than a big name pharmacy. And of course, yes there's those who need it immediately and don't want to make a separate stop, cost be d@mned. And the time factor would be offset by the added time to go to another location. The point about counseling is a good one. Over the past few years and seeing the incompetence, malfeasance and downright malpractice of nursing homes I have become very obsessive about checking for interactions on medications. One of the meds prescribed at the hospital has the following warning from drugs.com, but no warning on the bottle and no accompanying paperwork. "...may reduce (effects) in some patients...combining these medications can increase the risk of a rare but serious condition...which may include symptoms such as confusion, hallucination, seizure, extreme changes in blood pressure, increased heart rate, fever, excessive sweating, shivering or shaking, blurred vision, muscle spasm or stiffness, tremor, incoordination, stomach cramp, nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea." Granted to cover backsides they may overemphasize things but then again considering the drug interactions and effects that have found to be serious to deadly, I tend to want as much info as I can get on them. The pharmacy I usually use has a printout attached to each med and if I have not had a drug prescribed before the pharmacist is nearly insistent to point out anything serious. And the cover bottles with warning stickers too.