To be specific... today I am doing as little as possible due to the heat and my now premature old age, thanks to gardening. After ambitiously creating all new big flower beds around our house and yards, moving MANY tons of compost and mulch into these beautiful sweeping mounded beds, I realize too late that I was a short-sighted fool, since each summer my wife goes away for a month to visit her So California family. I realize too late that NOW I won't be able to go to my lake and drink beer with my brother, because all this beautiful new flora needs watering every day in this oppressive summer heat. Good bye Old Milwaukee and fishing. Hello hostas and coneflowers, plus hundreds of other perennials. I can ostensibly hide soaker hoses under the mulch and use those watering timers I bought last year... but it seems a bit risky to rush into another project when it's 95 degrees. Now when I go to our little neighborhood grocery store, all the nice ladies working there gather to make fun of me, and (baiting me) ask how my wife has been treating me through all my insanely ambitious garden and home projects that I have underway? I tell them that I pretend to be working but that I'm doing nothing more than softly singing negro spirituals and avoiding her. Now don't get me wrong about my wife of 37 years. We started dating when 16 years old, and I love her in a way that's sound as any forever bond or steely weld. I just wish she'd retire before 60 like me. She's a too organized 2nd grade teacher, and I'm a very bad boy it seems. As a result, she keeps putting my name on the refrigerator. Women... I swear they are fussier than an orchid at times, and meaner than a weed. Our yards now look fantastic and have commercial landscape lights... but Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Seen. jim Palmer

Plantmaven- Your garden pictures are so beautiful...but that little bird is just charming :) Gardenweed- Your peonies are lovely. We have some that came with the place that look very similar...and they have a nice fragrance. Thyme- Your garden is so pretty! I'm looking forward to seeing all your new veggies, next summer. Freezengirl- I do have Walker's Low catmint. It's in the kitchen garden. For some reason, the barn kitties leave it alone out there, but when I try to plant it closer to the house...disaster! LOL That's one reason I have so much lavender. Wren-garden, I have my blueberries mixed in with everything else, but I don't put acid on my soil, either. If you decide you need to add acid, then they'll look great with azaleas, rhodedendrons and hydrangeas (if you like the blue ones). I don't grow any of these (the first two are poisonous to horses) but I'm pretty sure they all like acid soil. Think about what else would grow under/with pine trees. As for deer...they can be a challenge, but ours are so darn cute, we try to make the garden work with them, rather than trying to get rid of them. I've read all deer are different, depending on where you live, how many they are (how hungry they are) and if there are so many...they just devastate everything. That being said, we've had good luck with butterfly bushes, lavender, catmint, bee balm, daisies, coneflowers, cosmos, marigolds, zinnias, peonies, daffodils, lilacs, plum trees, clematis, columbine, pansies, and mints. Hope that helps your sister, a bit :)

remy, For your not-run-of-the-mill hosta, any requests? (Not sure I'll see your response in time, but hey...) I've got Golden Tiara, which is gold on the edges, a few unnamed types that are large-leaved and blue-green, a small leafed bluish type that I think is Blue Cadet... but if I don't know if someone wants it I'm not splitting any of it. They're just kind of big right now. By next year I'd have Little Black Scape ready for dividing, but I don't know if it's there yet. Or you could really disappoint your husband with a teeny tiny hosta. I've got three teeny unnamed ones with leaves the size of my pinky fingernail, and Pandora's Box, which is even tinier (that whole plant is the size of my pinky fingernail!) I don't know what everyone wants, so I'm just going to see what I can pry out of the hard-as-concrete ground. Wish me luck. Ruth, isn't it Sunday? The message says June 5th, which is a Sunday.

As if there could ever be a problem with extra beer... There's never a problem with extra beer, the problem is the shortage of beer! Been to a few parties where that was a problem! Course that was in my younger days! Minnesota has it's own unique issues. Can't buy a car on Sunday. Can't buy liquor or strong beer on Sunday but you can buy 3.2. Minnesota is one of I think 3 states that sell 3.2. I think 3.2 should be outlawed but that's me. Some places you could go in and buy a beer in a bar, ask them to not open it. However you have to be careful. Some places could get in trouble if you take it off premises if they don't have an off-sale license and even if they do, then there's the Sunday laws. ARGH! To me something is legal to sell or illegal. How does it make sense to anyone other than some Bible-waving lunatic to say it's legal to sell beer 6 days a week but not on 1? Blues laws are obsolete. People work all different hours and should be able to buy their legal goods when they want to buy them. When I worked graveyard shift it always irritated be because at the time restaurants only served breakfast at 7AM. Now I'm a fan of breakfast but after working all night I wanted something more like a steak, meatloaf or something to sink my teeth into.