Happy to report that the shade did a marvelous job of preventing any berry damage. Except a few around the edges and high up on the north side. My freezer is full of blackberries. My next door neighbor's Navaho blackberries were mostly ruined. Got hit at the worst time. I put the shade back up today for 95 degree afternoon. We might hit 100 later in the week.

Emerald, It's a waiting game, more or less. Sounds like you're doing everything right, so I'd think you could expect them in the not-too-distant future. A couple questions: do you use a bloom fertilizer? An all-purpose fertilizer encourages leaf growth as opposed to flowering. Do you put your Hoyas outside in summer? Sometimes, that can push them into a bloom cycle. But I am very cautious about putting them outside because aphids tend to be a problem around here. Have you tried Eleanor's VF-11? It's a great product that seems to aid in both good growth and flowering. I water it in and use it as a foliar feed, too. I will also add that some species just seem to take longer to bloom than others. Any carnosa-related species is one that takes a few years (the two you mention fall into this category...) And I see you're in zone 4, which is even more north than I am. More north = less sun, especially in winter. We have a little more challenge in getting our Hoyas to bloom than the Floridians or Californians. I keep almost all mine against the glass in east and west windows, and then I have several I grow in my greenhouse off my kitchen that get good morning sun. And I still have some species that, after years and years, haven't bloomed for me. Cummingiana is one, and an austrailis ssp. is another. That's why I grow Hoyas more for the beauty of the foliage than the flowers - that way, if they DON'T flower, I'm still happy with them! Denise in Omaha

Aaaah. I need to get up there Kristi. And this weekend would have been perfect. Shoot. Maybe next weekend. I'm reserving a spot for the geiger in a new bed I'm putting in, slowly, by the pool. And I remember your rock garden, but wasn't paying attention to it in terms of what I should do with mine. I definitely need to see it. It had cactuses and succulents, right? Now that the veggie garden is in, I've got some weekend time until I start the next project - the new bed. I'm saving cardboard for it, and much of the pot ghetto is destined for it. Though the dear boyfriend is less unhappy about the pot ghetto because I thinned it a lot for the swap, and have planted most of what I got at the swap. So there's more space on our little deck finally. Plus, when I got rid of all the tomatoes at the swap, I managed to return the deck table to dinner use. He's sweet, but he kind of wanted the deck back. :) Treelady, crown of thorns is a good idea. I actually have two pots in need of plants right now, so I might try it in a different spot. I was going to do beans and cucumbers on a trellis, and even bought a cute trellis, but I'm out of beans. I'm actually thinking of planting some black-eyed peas I got at the grocery store. Wonder if they'd come up? And Mini, I've never had good luck with hibiscus. Always seems to get aphids. But I should put in some eggplant. I've actually been thinking of putting something edible in the front yard, something pretty. Eggplant's a good idea. Thanks all! Susannah

Scott, I agree with you that trouble is looming on the horizon. Y'all probably have a better chance of getting rain Mon. than we do. The rainfall at our Burneyville Mesonet station for March was 0.29" but I think we had about 0.50" at our house. Our last meaningful rainfall was during the snowy period when we received a pretty good rainfall before the temps dropped and the rest of the precip fell as sleet and snow. We had mud for ages during that time, but that seems so long ago and so far away. We have good soil moisture at the deeper levels but not so much as the upper levels. My poor sugar snap peas have been exposed repeatedly to temps in the upper 80s and low 90s. I think today's expected high of 87 degrees with wind gusting to 40 mph likely will finish them off. They look dry and half-dead like they normally would look in June when the heat is burning them up. It isn't a good year for the cool-season crops at our house. We're just too hot and even though I'm watering them well, it doesn't make up for the high temps. Dorothy, If we don't get those April showers, I guess we won't be seeing the May flowers. I'm hoping, hoping, hoping for rain....but it sure isn't looking good for our part of the state. They say the storms likely will start along and east of I35 and we're west of I35 so they aren't giving us much hope for rain tonight or tomorrow. Before we can even think about rain, we have to get through a high to extreme fire danger day. The wind is blowing hard here now and has been all night long. It kinda makes me wish we were back in January or February and had snow on the ground and cold air outside! Dawn