I can say that this year's shipment of BB (at least to my area) was extremely goofed up. Something tells me the grower for Bailey didn't overwinter them correctly or used a bad potting mix or something. The gallon pots had tons of foliage, and in the ground quickly grew leggy stems to 3x3, but will NOT produce buds. To boot these are in the same soil as T&S, regular ES, and Forever & Ever's, all of which bloomed and continue to bud. Since I put 2 in the ground back in May there has only been a total of ONE new flower bud, and that took 2.5 months to form. It's weird to ask "where's the blooming?" let alone "where's the reblooming?" A good winter of my BB going commando should set them on track next spring. White Out isn't practical enough for my large beds. The reblooming mophead family definitely has room for some larger white specimens that behave differently than either of these.

dear justine grower, I have lurked at your last post and having witnessed the end of my mothers no good marriage, and remembering my position as her young daughter at the time, this is a I need to see through. I spoke to a friend of mine who is a psychologist, he says that your husband is displaying classic sociopathic behavior, he may not a murderer, but he is void of actual feeling, and everything and everyone is simply being kept neatly in their rightful place in his life because this is where they are in his mind. He will never divorce you, but you will never feel loved by him, you are there simply to play your role, as your daughter is. But I am afraid for your daughter, because when she develops into a young woman with wants and needs contrary to daddy's ideas for her, her self esteem will be crushed by him, because she will too, be kept neatly in place and eventually grow in to a woman who will not make a decision without, specifically, his direction. If this is the case for her, what will happen to her when something happens to him. She will never individuate from him, he will be the extension of her that gives direction to her life. May I ask, what happens when you have an idea concernign some decision for your daughter that he opposes? Does your idea stand a chance, or does he go on proving his postition by making you of no effect in the direction of her life, except when it corresponds with his ideas? I am sorry that you are sad, and that you feel the natural loving and maternal need to save him, or help him heal, but you need to realise that his way of thinking and analysing real llife aituations is not going to change, or even get better without some serious therapy, multiplied years of therapy, and he must be submissive at that, now honestly, do you really think this is possible? He feels safe only when things can be controlled, which is why he is great at work, there is no emotion to complicate the work environment, there is simply a formula to follow, the rules are straight laced, he walks the beaten path everyday, and can follow the same rules over and over and over again to make things work for him there without question. But with you, when he follows the same rules over and over and over again, there are questions, complications and unhappiness, which he cannot understand anyway 'I can't connect to his personality, he says one thing today and something else tomorrow, doesn't even remember or says 'well that was yesterday'. Sometimes I wonder who the hell he really is?' You are not loved, you are simply filling a role normal to an adult male in his adult male life. So is your daughter, 'Like he never memorizes things about me, after 10 years he still gets me wrong presents and red instead of white wine. He is not on my side if somebody hurts my feelings' It is obvious that your role as 'wife' in his life had been fashioned in his mind long before you even met him. You are in a position that fits no one but him, in his mind the wife he has isn;t anyone but someone he made up, I guess that you were the closest fit, or a woman who was easy to mold, or make fit into what he envisions. Was he abused as a child, why was his emotional development so stunted, that he plays life? You do realise that he isn't living it right? And I am sorry, but you cannot save him in time to save your daughter. Get out for your daughter's sake, even if you are convinced that you love him and want to see him better, then look on him and support his progress as a friend. Please get your daughter out of there.

In heathy cats, ringworm resolves itself without treatment. Shelter cats are generally stressed enough to cause temporary immunosuppression, and once they are adopted into new loving homes like yours, they bounce right back. Treatment is reserved for cats who do not spontaneously resolve, in which case one has to wonder about the health of the cat. FeLV and FIV positive cats tend to not resolve spontaneously, and griseofulvin in FIV positive cats is especially risky due to the potential for bone marrow suppression. So testing for FIV and FeLV is extremely important in all ringworm cases. Another reason to treat ringworm is to help it resolve quicker for the health of the family. Weekly baths with miconazole shampoo followed by lime-sulfur dips prevents the spread of fungal spores in the environment, which is great for the family. A 1:10 bleach solution also kills the fungal spores in laundry and in the environment. Griseofulvin is taken orally and spreads to the hair follicles within several hours, killing the fungus at the source, but does not remove spores from the hair and skin. Since your daughter has already been infected, I would certainly do the weekly baths and dips in your case. Hormonal teenagers are often susceptible to ringworm because of mild immunosuppression; other people are simply more susceptible (luckily I don't get ringworm at all, considering my profession). Some people have the vet do the weekly baths and dips because 1) lime-sulfur dips STINK 2) the dip stains jewelry so if you are going to to them at home, remember to remove all of your jewelry and 3) bathing a cat weekly- need I say more LOL?! I've had a couple of cases of athlete's foot from the gym. A couple of 10% bleach solution dips always took care of it. Maybe it will work for your daughter- a fungus is a fungus after all. Don't put bleach on very inflamed skin or open wounds because it will hurt like heck. I hope this helps and everyone gets better very soon.

I love making soil. I love it even more when someone else is doing most of the work for me. I'm itching to start some spring planting in my tiny garden, but it's technically still a bit early (our last frost date is supposed to be around the 18th or so, but these days who even knows) and I'm impatiently waiting for the contractors to show up and replace my rotted fence before I can do any planting in the back half where the pile of rock mulch over weed cloth used to be. The fence would have rotted anyway, but the bottom of it was completely eaten away where the rock mulch was piled against it. I have already put down a tiny new tree (Amelanchier x "Autumn Brilliance") which arrived bare root and needed to go in the ground ASAP, but it's not next to the fence, so it should be fine as long as the fence guys don't step on the 18 inch high forked stick which, seen with my eye of faith, is already a handsome small patio tree. The tree went in the spot where the old, scrawny, unhealthy cherry plum used to be, where I have been piling vermicompost and leaves ever since last summer. I didn't amend the planting hole at all - just dug and filled in. Enough leaf mold and vermicompost just fell into the hole to make me feel fine about the start my new tree's roots are getting. Anyway, the "someone else" who is working for me outside is a healthy passel of earthworms, which I can see out there every time I pull back last autumn's leaf mulch, which I diligently collected from the sidewalk in front of my row house and brought out back. Even if I can't set to work yet, I like knowing that they're hard at it. I've seen some of my red wigglers who rode out from my indoor worm bin, and at least three separate species of native earthworms: slow gray short guys, some really huge red nightcrawler types, and a longer, thinner, super-active wiggly worm that's new to me. I've also scattered out some seeds and grains for the sparrows and squirrels, inspired by some videos of composting chickens I've watched on Youtube: so there's been lots of pecking and scratching and digging going on in the layer of leaves, which is both fun to watch and will serve to further shred down the leaves for incorporation in the soil. When I do get to the planting along the back fence, I'll try to remember to post a soil pic as a "before and after" to the one at the start of this topic.