Xanadu in August X-rated - Got this in 2007...I really like it. No Y's or Z'szzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz Char

Both are tender perennials in our zone, so most of the time they don't over winter here. But as your pictures show, they are really dramatic in the fall landscape. At our local botanical garden decades ago I saw a C. Bicapsularious which they had overwintered for a year in the greenhouse but had outside for its fall display. I didn't know what it was so I asked what I took to be a groundskeeper hoping I'd get more then just the usual common local name which can be hard to research. She rattled it off with ease. Believe me it's a mouth full the first time you hear it. Still wish I could grow it. As your pictures show, C. Bicapsulaius is so pretty come autumn. I'd forgotten how the flowers look on it up close. Thanks so much for posting this. It has jogged my memory banks......Maryl

Kathy, These are the onion varieties recommended for Oklahoma in the OSU Vegetable Variety Guide for Home Gardeners: YELLOW: Granex, Grano 1015Y (Texas Supersweet), Yellow Sweet Spanish, Walla Walla Sweet RED: Granex WHITE: Crystal White, Granex, White Sweet Spanish BUNCHING: Evergreen White I'm not at all an onion expert, but I think all the above varieties are fairly sweet, or at least more sweet than pungent. Of the OSU-recommended varieties, I think the Yellow Sweet Spanish and the White Sweet Spanish would be the least sweet and most pungent. The problem with wanting to grow onions considered hotter, more pungent or more spicey is that the onions that grow best in the southern US are the sweet ones. The onions that grow best in the north are the more pungent ones. And, the types of onions that grow well in each area is determined by day-length. SHORT DAY ONIONS: These start the bulbing process when daylength reaches only 10-12 hours. Here in Oklahoma, short-day onions grow best. Short day onions grow well only in southern states, which would be everything from Oklahoma, Arkansas, etc. southward. You can grow them in the northern states, but they remain small. INTERMEDIATE DAY ONIONS: Require 12-14 hours of daily sunlight to begin bulbing, so they will grown best in most of the south, except the southernmost parts of the southern states, but they also grow well through the states that sit one state or two above the southern tier of states. Here in the middle of the USA, for example, they can be grown in the northern half of Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas. Above all but northernmost Kansas, you have to grow the next category.... LONG DAY ONIONS: These do best in northern states that have 14-16 hours of sunlight daily, and there are both sweet and storage (pungent) types that do well in the northern states. Here in the middle of the country, you can grow long day onions in the northernmost half, or maybe third, of Kansas (if planted very early) and then all the way north to Canada. Most of the more pungent or spicier or hotter onions (however you prefer to describe them) that I am familiar with are the long-day types. Can you grow long-day types in Oklahoma? Perhaps and, the farther north you are, the more likely they'd bulb up a little but they most likely wouldn't get as big as they do when grown in the more northern states. Since you are pretty far north in Oklahoma, I think you might have success with a Long Daylength type like Big Daddy (100days)(available from Dixondale online and probably other onion suppliers as well). A new long daylength onion at Dixondale that is supposed to be a bit more pungent is Sterling (95 days). I have grown one of Dixondale's long daylength specialty onions--Red Torpedo--and it did OK. It is, as the name implies, a long torpedo-shaped onion and not a round one. It is a sweet onion, so I just mentioned it because it was a long daylength type that did form a bulb here (somewhat). If you buy your onion plants locally (cause Dixondale's are very expensive), check the side of the wooden crate they're shipped in. Sometimes on the side, the word "storage" or "sweet" is printed either on the box or the label. Anything labeled "storage" would be more pungent than those labeled "sweet". I usually buy from Dixondale so I can get exactly the variety I want at exactly the time I want to plant it, so the extra expense is worth it to me. Sometimes my local feed/seed stores sell onions from Dixondale and sometimes they sell seeds from Bonnie Plant Farms. They all have about the same onions every year though, and they are almost always the sweet types, although at least the sweet spanish types are not quite as sweet as the supersweet types. You could try asking your local ag extension agent if any pungent type onions grow in your part of the state. And, if you decide to try growing a long daylength type, the earlier you can get them into the ground the better. Then, keep them well-fed and well-watered so you'll have the biggest, healthiest green tops possible at the time that bulbing initiates and that will give you a good chance of having some size to the bulbs. Dawn

I bought a pretty standard thermostat that works will all types of systems. It is here http://www.ritetemp-thermostats.com/images/6030_installation_guide.pdf I have a Trane system. It was manufactured in 1989. I actually checked it at the unit in my attic and the W and Y terminals don't even have wires running to them. The a/c and heat wires go to the condensing unit but there are 8 for my building and I don't even know which one is mine because they aren't labeled.