If in doubt on which side is up, plant the bulb on its side.....and let mother nature sort it out......the roots will emerge and the spout will head to the warmth...... Done this with numerous bulbs that are confusing....

Daniella, I think your right about your coneflowers. I have some that look the very same. From everything I read it said to discard the plants and others that show symptoms. It is my understanding that it can be passed on to other plants by bugs eating or gathering nector from one plant and then spreading it to the next plant they feed on. Makes sense to me. They also said it's spread by some kind of weeds in the flowerbeds. I'm like you I read so much about it my head was spinning. After reading about it I pulled all mine up. Let's just say I decided it was something I didn't want taking over my other plants and flowers. It is considered to be a SICK PLANT and therefore should not be shared with other gardeners unless they want the infection around there other plants. I don't want any, I also thought mine were UGLY. Everything was GREEN stems, leaves, flowers, just too much of a good thing. I like vivid colors on my coneflowers. LOL Good Luck and Happy Gardening, P.S. I wish I had known before you didn't know about Birds and Blooms. I would have sent you a stack of my old ones. Your kids would have loved to just look at all the beautiful photos of flowers and birds. I gave them all away at the plant swap.

No way, BKay. You've proven you can grow hostas where you are. Maybe not some of the more, ah, 'delicate' ones, but you've 'weeded' out some of the ones you've seen that don't do too well in your climate. Don't give up! As far as which questions to ask, I'd start with the ones you seem to want to ask, as detailed in the third paragraph of your post. Those are good questions, and they wouldn't exactly be volunteering info if they simply answered those politely asked, yet pointed, questions. I'd tell 'em that you're an avid hosta grower, and to help you personally as a gardener, you'd be curious why all these big, apparently healthy hostas are gone. Shoot, you make ME want to ask them, and I'm not even a resident! Maybe I will, too... : ) Just my take, and good luck with the infoquest, Don B.

Steve, there's some contention over the Complete Ball Blue Book, as it was apparently published in Canada, with guidelines less stringent than those here in the United States. Soooo....trained educators like Linda Lou at Harvest can't tell you the recipes are "safe" because the USDA hasn't approved them. Now, understand, this doesn't mean that they AREN'T safe, just that they are untested by our government. Since the company (Ball/Kerr/Jardin/Bernardin/whatever) has food scientists that do testing, and guidelines and parameters they work within, I'm perfectly comfortable with this book and the safety of the recipes and techniques. I do have the $5 Ball Blue Book, it's about 1/5 the size of the Complete issue, so there are a lot of recipes in this Complete book that aren't in the others. Annie