Hello lmoaks: I live in Ayer, and would love to take a Sunday drive to Hubbardston and see what you have left (if anything..) Will take whatever you have and would love a tour of your greenhouse if possible. Hubbardston is about 40 mins away but it is so beautiful this time of year with the gorgeous fall color. Feel free to email me or post. Thanks lots. Debra

The Sears prices for the 20 lb.and 40 lb. bags of both Tomato-Tone and Garden-Tone are almost exactly the same price I paid the last time I bought them at one of the few nurseries that carry them in north central Texas, and that's an 80-mile one-way trip I don't have to make, so I feel like I have come out ahead this time. I can find the 4 lb. bags at some of the Calloway's Nursery stores in north central Texas, but I think the last time I saw them there last year they were insanely high-prioed....like $9.99 to $11.99. Every now and then I see some of the Espoma line in a local Home Depot, though not consistently, and when I do the price is more reasonable. I simply buy whatever I find wherever I find it because when you're in a really rural area where you have to drive 20 or 30 miles one way to make it to something like a Wal-Mart or Lowe's or Home Depot, you know your options are fairly limited. Sadly, there's an extremely strong farming/ranching heritage here in my area based on a high usage of chemical, synthetic products so that's what the stores carry. They tell me the demand for organic products is too low and too inconsistent for them to devote much shelf space to them. It was a huge shock for me when we moved here from Fort Worth-Dallas in the late 1990s to learn I'd still have to drive to Fort Worth-Dallas to get organic gardening supplies. We're in our 13th year here and it hasn't improved much. There's a limited selection of organic supplies in stores here, but probably not even 20%-30% the selection of what I'd find in any one of the many nurseries and garden centers in the Dallas-Fort Worth area that carry organic products. When we moved here, I didn't realize that the D-FW area had a larger base of organic gardeners that most parts of the country, except for the West Coast and the Austin, TX, area and that they were light-years ahead of most of the rest of the world in the availability of organic gardening products. I believe this was largely due to J. Howard Garrett and Malcolm Beck and their writings and Howard's radio show. Because we had organic gardening supplies available in several select nurseries in the Dallas-Fort Worth area as far back as the late 1980s and much more widespread in the 1990s I thought organic gardening supplies were easily found everywhere, but they aren't. What is even sadder is that some of the local, independent nurseries, feed and seed stores and garden centers who were at the forefront of the organic movement in the D-FW metroplex for many years aren't doing well in this economy, and I heard that one of my favorite stores, Green Mama's, which sold native plants and organic supplies when we still lived in Texas, is closing their doors, and they're not the first to do that in recent years. It makes me wonder....if a well-established native plant nursery/organic supply store can't survive in the D-FW area where organic gardening is well-established and popular, then how can they survive anywhere? When you're lucky enough to find a store that carries organic supplies, give them your business consistently and refer everyone to them that you can because smaller, independent retailers have such a hard time surviving in this economy and we need to do what we can to support the companies that carry the supplies we need. Susan, I agree in general about the online companies that offer free shipping and handling. I rarely order online because shipping cancels out any cost savings, and free shipping seldom is "free". Every now and then I can order somsething online for less than I'd pay in local stores and if free shipping is included, it's an even better deal. I usually can find Semaspore online cheaper than it is in nurseries in Texas (no one has it in the stores here near me in southern OK). Last year I even had a 25-lb. bag of Surround-WP bought/shipped for less than it would have cost me to buy it in Fort Worth. So, there's good deals out there online but they're not that easy to find. In this particular case with Sears, I would never, ever have bought this stuff and paid to have it shipped. The shipping would have increased my final price about 50%. Based on other "local" (if you consider Dallas local for me) prices, though, I got the Espoma for the same or less than what I would have paid if I drove to Dallas to get it, so I'm a happy camper, except I'm worried I didn't order enough of it. I wish that other retailers would start carrying more of all the Espoma products too. The only ones I've ever seen here are the Garden-Tone, Holly-Tone, Plant-Tone, Tomato-Tone, and their some of their single-ingredient items like bone meal, blood meal and lime. I've never seen their soil mixes any place. I'd bet some of the larger, more well-established nurseries in Dallas proper would have them, but that's just too far for me to drive. I think y'all's best bet in OKC may be that new organic store that you've mentioned. If all of you in that area keep asking them if they carry or plan to carry more of the Espoma line, maybe they'd give those products a try to see if they catch on. Dawn

Thanks Robert- I use Dynamite as well and think it is a good fertilizer. I use the red on some things and the green on many others. For years, our local Adenium grower has recommended the red (13-13-13) for all Adeniums purchased from them. I used a lot of it on some big plants (huge sagos and the sort) last year and it got a little expensive so I'll definitely check out Amazon. I do not know about the shelf life but if I had to guess I'd say you're probably good as long as you keep it sealed up and out of heat and light. Since it is time release, it isn't like lawn fertilizer that gets all caked up and nasty.

It's true, though, about Bourbons. I know from photos, that where they're happy, they're happy, but I've never YET met a Bourbon that wanted to live where I live. That's a real pity -- I love their look, but I know when to admit defeat. Still true about the pruning thing. Most of your Austins are budded. Most of the older roses -- are not. And until they build up some substance, pruning is the last thing most of the oldies need.