I hope the problems cornus florida has been having is more a cause of a change in forest make up than infections but i fear it is a combination. Dogwoods are some of my favorites.

Melissa, Yes,i also have a Greek-god,the one you are seeing(i think)is Neptune,in the front yard are my two Greek statues,names leave me at the moment,lol Go you have a picture of your"Thinker"? We really don't have soup weather,but it sounded so darn good, and it was. I have never made pumpkin soup, is it good? Seems like most of my hosta turned yellow over night,i just hate winter coming. I am planning on trying some hosta seed this winter,i may do the winter sowing thing with them,not sure yet, it is so easy that way. I'm happy you like my statues, hubby surprised me with them one day.I almost cryed when i saw them, they make my hosta bed look so nice. Carol

Jim, Come on down, I have two potted up. One in a one gallon pot and another in a three gallon pot. And there are a whole bunch of suckers in the ground. I plan on leaving them there until late winter - early spring before potting them up, since I don't have the room to over winter them indoors in pots. But if you want one of the suckers I could pot one up for you. My email is issaquahfish at msn.com. You can have one without a trade, but if you have anyone of the hardy Schefflera's I would be interested in a cutting or a start. They are very hard to find in North America. They sell them in Europe but for someone like me, it would be impossible to get. Crug Farms out of Scotland sell numerous species and about half of them they credit Dan Hinkley with introducing into the trade. It's too bad he wasn't able to do that here for whatever reason since he lives in Washington State. Next year I probably will be more aggressive in removing the suckers before they get any size since they are interfering with my collection of hardy and semi-hardy banannas. John

Yippppeeee...got home from the office a little while ago and am excited to see such nice compliments from ya'll! Yes, those are my tomato plants in the 6th picture. When I plated them at the beginning of March, they were about 12" tall. They've grown leaps and bounds since then and have lots of tomatos ripening as we speak. Oddly enough, I can't stand the taste of them and only grow them to give away to friends and family. Prettypetals, I am embarrassed to say that I cannot remember the name of that rose. I have been trying to remember it for about 2 weeks and have been looking on the 'net to try and jog my memory. I think it is either Honey something or Gold something. Out of all of my roses, that is the only one that I can't remember. I love the Mexican Bush Sage and so do the butterflies and lizards and the black racer that likes to hide out and scare the s@%t out of me. We had a hard freeze here a few months ago with temps in the low '20's. I thought I lost the bush but as you can see, it does not seem to have been phased. Purple is probably my favorite garden color.