Virginia, 'A Place of Greater Safety' is good; I was slightly baffled as to why 'Wolf Hall' and 'Bring up the Bodies' won awards, though I enjoyed them both and thought they were fine novels, just not spell-binding. A re-read is in order. 'A Place of Greater Safety' matches them in quality. I have a weakness for good historical novels (not the bodice-rippers, in other words). I tend to be a light pruner, not at all given to guillotining my plants, and Lucie is a bit of a weakling, very likely on account of her poor growing conditions. She has been dug around and the soil amended this fall, and I'm hoping for an improvement next spring. Kate, thanks for the poetry, and I'm happy to meet another fan of Jane Austen! Melissa

Yay! I know exactly how you feel! So exciting! Keep us all posted! Lisa

We decided to compost the Mammoth mums we had been growing in pots and storing in the garage in the winter - I got tired of them :-). So we don't have to make that when-to-move-to-garage decision for them this year! I thought DH was putting pots away yesterday, but he was only clearing dead veggies out and removing the mums. He decided it was still too warm to plant the garlic in the pots before storing them for the winter in the garage. Given the warm fall we've been having, it may be close to December before the pots get stored this year....! Fall here is probably much warmer than your inland one. We usually need to be wearing gloves and a fairly heavy coat for walking by the time we put the pots in the garage :-)

Do you have any place under your eaves where you could put her? Mine was a black spot nightmare in a pot until I planted her where she is shielded from excessive Rain by a Spruce limb. She has completely shaped up and become quite a nice plant although she's only a year old. She's giving me some gorgeous and is totally clean which is shocking as everything here black spots. I did spray her with dormant oil before she leafed out and later with sulfur . I think that also helped.