I'm struggleing to keep things alive. HOT and DROUGHT! 'nuff said? I planted 30 Pro Cut Orange seedlings on Friday. Each was 8-10 inches tall. Came back Sunday and they were GONE! Don't know if it was rabbits or grasshoppers. It's things like that that make me wonder if I'm the ONLY person in Texas (the WORLD!?!) who can't get sunflowers to grow! I have a few more trays of various suns/zinnias/ misc. others in progress, but I'm VERY scared to plant them in the field. It's very discouraging--I may have to camp out there every night and say "Shoo!" to anything that moves! Have found the hoops & fabric & staples to make some row covers, just haven't had time to set them up. Hopefully if I DO get them set up, I'll have some protection from varmints. I ran into a friend at Walmart Sunday afternoon; she asked if I had any flowers NOW, as in That afternoon! Told her I had a few sunflowers (from a successful planting in late March). She was having friends over for dinner Sunday night, owned a neat blue pitcher, so out she came and bought all 8 I had laft! Hooray! A RETAIL sale! That was fun! And fun, just standing in the field, cutting, and then handing them to her right then. We decided to let her take them home and put them in water there instead of trying to juggle buckets and water from the field. She was going straight home in AC car anyway. My boss at the nursery decided that this would be the year to grow vegies as fresh produce to sell at the nursery. So he's got this (seems huge to me) area of vegies in progress out back. One of the staff chores is "getting" to harvest said vegies every morning. Today was MY turn! I had to work a whole HOUR! Boyohboy, do I have new respect for the millions (?) of farm workers out there--and the whole American Food Chain! And you cut flower growers who also grow and harvest your own vegies for market. BOY am I SUCH a City Girl! LOL! I've had to stoop over some for my meager flowers on occassion, but not so far, in the kind of heat we have right now, and not through scratchy leaved zuchinni & squash plants! Dang! New subject: Kim, could you repost the Calla link? When I clicked on it it said the page wasn't found or something like that. Thanks. That's all for now. Susi.

My money making season has been done for quite a while. The market I attend does go thru to mid-September, however the demand for flowers seems to dry right up after August. The market is a 40 mile drive for me, so I have to make it worth it. I did a final cleanup of the yard & garden yesterday including pulling up the glads and cutting back the peony foliage. Our weather has now taken a turn to very cool and a winter storm warning has been issued for tonight and tomorrow. Oddly enough for this area, we have not yet had a killing frost - only a couple of light ones which didn't seem to hurt much. A few weeks ago I cut back hard the Champion Pink Campanula and the bed is now a mass of short pink bells. I'm not going to pull the plants in the hopes of them wintering (you never know until you try), but will buy more seed next year anyway. This flower was a huge hit with my customers this year, so I'll probably try the blue next year as well. I still have a lot of Indian Summer rudbeckia in bloom. I cut a bouquet for myself yesterday and included yarrow, statice, miscanthus and spartina pectinata inflorescence, snapdragons (that deep red which seems even deeper in the cool weather), and Autumn Joy sedum, in the height of colour right now. Another bouquet for my neighbor included a mix of snapdragons, carnations and statice. It's just so unusual for me to be cutting bouquets of flowers on Thanksgiving weekend (in Canada), it's quite a treat. So keep posting all you warm weather folks - with my winter about to hit, it's nice to know there's flowers growing somewhere

Hi Linda, Might I offer a hearty congratulations on your upcomming wedding! I have some suggestions on species, but am not at familiar with florists in NSW, unfortunately. Perhapse contact your local ASGAP people on this link: http://www.austplants-nsw.org.au/index.htm Species (all should be available with a Google Image Search): Keep in mind the availability of these depend very much on the time of year you're getting hitched (sp. = various species, lots of different colours in most cases). Banksia coccinea (stunning dep red/scarlet colour, smaller inflorescence compared to most Banskia sp.) Goodia sp. Kennedia sp. Darwinia sp. Arthropodium strictum (Chocolate Lily) Hakea sp. Indigofera australis Callistemon (of course!) Grevillea (of course!) Eucalyptus caesia Eucalyptus macrocarpa (pretty hard to come by, very limited season, but brilliant flower) Corymbia ficifolia (they finished flowering about a month ago, so won't be available until the start of next year) Acacia sp. (hundreds, something should be in flower no matter what time of year) Tetratheca sp. Correa sp. Xerochrysum sp. (paper daisies) Eremophilla sp. Anigozanthos sp. (kangaroo paws) Scaevola aemula Dampiera sp. Doryanthes excelsa (Gymea Lily, huge flower, but would make a great centre piece for the boquet or table) Macropidia (more kangaroo paws) Haemodorum (kanga paws, again) Telopea sp. Good luck, Linda! I hope all goes well on the day. Don't forget the, "I do," bit! Regards, Jim

They don't look like a flower to me, but I really wasn't sure what it is. The stems are very firm/stiff, but the "frills"/leaves/whatever are very soft and flexible. I cut some pieces and put them on white paper to photograph, along with a regular pen for scale. Does this help? If better photos are needed, I'll have to try again tomorrow in natural daylight!