Interesting information. The "Sunrise" that I have does tend to fade out to a pale-yellow rather fast, unfortunately. On the plus side, it has grown very vigorously and hasn't had much in the way of quilled petals. It did have a few deformed petals (quills or missing most petals) after the shock of the late frosts in April, 2007, but that lousy weather produced a similar effect upon my "Magnus" coneflower. Other than the first few flowers on both plants in 2007, everything has been normal for me. It is worth mentioning that I bought my plants from a local nursery, not a big-box store, which may explain the quality of the tissue culture. Good luck, and thanks for all the info about this problem.

My agastaches were in a raised bed on a slope with lots of sand - very well-drained. There's no rotting, no softening - they are just dry sticks. It's like Ava and Shades of Orange were annuals - they got thin and sparse and stopped growing last fall, whereas Desert Sunrise made the basal growth that stayed alive all winter. They weren't all that drought tolerant last summer either - they definitely appreciated water when we had no rain for so long. Salvia Wild Thing also survived but I wouldn't order again from HCG - too expensive and climate too different. Oh, Zauschneria arizona from HCG has survived two winters now - although my mother brought those plants back from New Mexico. But it hasn't bloomed. And red yucca from a Texas trader too. So some SW natives can make it here. If you're going to be in my neighborhood (Montgomery Twp) email me, and we can swap cuttings. Loretta, that does look something like Desert Sunrise in the flower color - I'm definitely hitting the Rutgers sale this year.

Windows on Washington, Thanks for your comments. I've had replacement window Reps in my home who offer Lifetime warranties on their windows, Reading through Angie's List in my area there seems to be many complaints from customers who can't get the company who sold them the windows to honor the warranty or they make the process so difficult customers give up. Nor can some customers get the manufacturing company to send a rep to access the problem. More attention is paid to the selling side than honoring the warranty side after they're installed. And the older the replacement window...the harder it seems to get some companies to come out to inspect it or they come out and find a reason to not replace the replacement. I've read quite a bit of that on Angie's List for my area and online even for companies like Marvin which surprised me. The replacement window companies would have fewer complaints if their Lifetime Warranty side of the business was just as eager to honor the warranties as the sales side is to sell the windows. In addition, the online complaints never disappear. So, even if/when a window company cleans up it's act and starts addressing their Lifetime Warranty promise new prospective customers will run into those negative reviews which cast a bad light on some companies. Marvin seems to have a lot of complaints. We love our house. Our goal is to age in place for as possible. We don't want to go through replacing the replacements! Experts say, vinyl does not last like wood and it will need to be replaced 7 to 10 yrs, or if you're very lucky you may get 15 yrs useage on some of them. I know people who've replaced vinyl windows after 10 yrs due to the clouding problem which they experienced on too many windows. Maybe the reputation of replacing the replacements for various reasons is why some vinyl companies offer the Lifetime Warranty. We have spent countless hours doing the pros and cons. Our biggest concern is our huge cottage picture window and 2 matching large companion windows on each side of the pic window in front of the house. The picture window takes up almost an entire wall in our livingroom. The light is wonderful especially in the winter, it's a southern exposure all day with no obstructions. We use to have trees but they're gone so, we can see why they built the these big windows across the front in '63, all 3 had shade from 2 trees. We also want to replace the small single pane wood grid windows on all with a no grid double pane large window that is designed for full sun on the picture and the 2 companion windows with a double hung double pane with grids only on the top window. All the local window companies are only as good as the sales team, installations team and fulfilling the warranties especially, in a timely manner. Failing to do so in any of those 3 areas means I'd be less likely to buy windows from them.

Dirtdigger, I'm sorry to see such damage, but I'd bet that's gopher damage, not voles. We have both voles and gophers. Voles pick on smaller plants here and mostly grass, which they store in their tunnels. Vole tunnels run fairly close to the surface, while gophers go deep, tunnel a long ways and come up to larger roots which they demolish, leaving a rose or other plant with only its top growth. Our cats are really keeping the voles down this year, and in the past, badgers which are all over these desert hills, have decimated the gophers, really reducing their destruction in my garden. Entrances to gopher tunnels have a pile of dirt called frass next to the openings. If you see one of those, you've got gophers. But often the entrances are a long way off. Diane