Hey FBB: Don't feel bad, it happens to me to a varying extent every year. My extols me to hill the corn every year. She thinks that it will produce more prop roots thereby minimizing the lodging. I agree with her about causing greater prop root formation but, still I get blowdown. The reasons I don't like hilling: 1) it is alot of physical work 2) it doesn't seem to stop the lodging 3) I have to flatten the hills back out in the fall (more work). However, this year, in order to reduce the labor I used my tiller to loosen about an inch of soil on both sides of each row and hilled the plants with the easy to move soil. It made hills about 8" tall around the plants. We had 3" of rain wind and pea sized hail Monday evening over a 2 hour period and my corn is still standing. HURRAY! I'm looking forward to picking standing like a homo sapiens rather than a gorilla this year. There may be another benefit to hilling. For the 1st time ever, I have corn root worms. Having the extra roots that formed from hilling may have saved me from serious losses from the worm s the plants may have grew new roots faster than the worms could kill them. About 5% of my plants fell over and shriveled which is how I discovered the (very late in the season) worms.

Hmmmm.....I hadn't considered what to do by the time they are too big to tie, mad gallica. The problem is, not a whole lot of shrubs will fit those particular screening needs in small spaces. Have they stopped being recommended, I wonder? Brandon...we get lots of heavy snow most winters. This is my first winter with the Sky Pencil. I think I will be happier in the spring having it tied so it won't splay out. It was so easy too. Not having to tie it is one of the advantages of your zone and less snow, enjoy it. :-)

It's starting to clear here, but that wind is something else! Now that the sun is out I put on a sweater and went to see if anything was blown over. Pretty well everything looks fine, but I spent yesterday cutting back a lot of stuff that was looking ratty and overgrown, and tying up the stuff that needed it. I'll be bringing in my Clivias tonight, but they'll go back out tomorrow. Pretty well everything else that winters indoors can tolerate a dip to 5C without any real damage (although I will be paying very close attention to the thermometer tonight, just in case!). There's still another couple of weeks before I really start feeling like I need to start hauling stuff in for good! BP

This time I'm not posting about Gold Coat Peach's scent (which is awesome). Nope. This time I'm posting about how impressed I am with the first inflo I've gotten from this plant. Most of my first inflos have been lackluster and don't produce many blooms or they fall off quickly or even worse I lose the whole inflo. Not so with Gold Coast Peach. This baby is pumping out mega blooms! Love it...hope I didn't just jinx it by posting this. ;) -Robert