Welcome to GW, ruvin!! May I be the first to congratulate you on your wise decision to join us. Y'know, we're all a little 'nuts', and some more than others, depending on how much we appreciate 'dirt therapy'. You'll soon learn who the real 'whacko's' are - there's a bunch of us on here, and some with a better sense of humor than others, so don't be offended as we 'jerk chains' ocassionally...I'm learning it just "goes with the territory. We agree to disagree, and everybody's welcome to express their own opinion. My advice? Provide lots of information when posting a question, and read your submission a couple of times before you click the "Submit" button. Had a guy tell me the other day, that he lost respect for me when I said that shoveling poop to make compost, was good therapy. Oh well...You find out who your friends are. Hope you'll tell us more about yourself by posting some info on your GW Member Profile, and what your favorite kinds of 'therapy' are. There's no limits imposed - reckon you saw the link to 'peter peppers'? And that's just for 'starters'... Robert

For sure, getting them watered MORNINGS is important to let the pollen and such stay on the blooms for night time visitors. ====>>> pollen doesnt work that way ... its only viable for a few hours... and degrades in heat very fast ... the ones that are viable.. any given night .. opened that afternoon ... i doubt it lasts over thru the next day.. and perhaps an indicator.. is that it has little scent left .. by the next morning .. i am guessing on that part... but it makes sense not to bother to lure in the pollinators.. if the pollen is dead ... being a species.. P should come true from seed ... but because it opens so late in summer ... there is not enough time for the pods to mature to viable seed .... for many of us the further north you go ... [90 days from 8/15 is mid-november.. and the plants are dead to the ground for me in MI ] ... some have tried cutting the stalks before freeze and trying to mature them in sugar water ... i lost interest at that point ... lol ... so ... if you wanted.. as your goal.. to add fragrance to your seedlings.. you 'take' pollen from P .... in the evening.. and somehow 'store' it.. to put on something else .. the next morning when those flowers are fresh .. ... [they used to use those black film canisters.. of which.. i bet you cant even buy them now ...] .. [for the truly crazed ... you try to store your pollen in august.. to put it onto those very early sieboldianas the following may.. i think it can be done in the freezer.. but again.. i lost interest at that point.. lol ...] BUT!!! ... being a species.. it would be time/effort wasted to put pollen of other things.. onto P .... it will not be accepted ... there.. more useless hosta knowledge ... i cant remember how old i am.. but i remember this stuff.. of course.. that might just be denial ... lol .. ken

Just my own opinion for what its worth which isn't much: Its a trade off. Unless you want to discuss vegetable garden subjects, other forums are often more interesting but other forums are often ruder & many people are egotistical, competitive, irritating etc. This usually happens in lively discussions so a thick skin is required. Its true people are basically nice in the midwest but, getting back to the subject of forums in general, the Oklahoma Forum focuses 90% on vegetable gardens & to a lesser degree lawns & common urban landscape plants, so some people feel out of step, lack subjects in common, come away feeling like an observer & non club member or simply find many posts boring. Still, its nice to see people being nicer. Personally I do like a lively discussion even when its not all politeness at times. Gardeners can get passionate when worked up about something they really care about or something that works for them even if the majority disagrees. I've never lived anywhere else. Folks used to just be nice by nature without talking about it or being complimented which would have been embarrassing. I've seen us patting ourselves on the back for this all the time on the local news in the last several years. Thats new. This post was edited by TexasRanger10 on Thu, Apr 17, 14 at 16:45

Dawn, other than a couple of grape vines and some irises, I don't do any gardening in the back yard. The wife's dogs own the back yard, for one thing. Once in awhile, the dogs give me permission to mow the grass. We have some beds along the fences in the back yard. I laid out and installed those when we re-graded the back yard during the first year we were here. The grade in back was much worse than the front. It was a leg breaker. I've tried to grow a few things in those beds, but between the shade and the dogs, not much luck. Those beds still need more compost, peat and composted manure. I did ad some sulfur to them, this spring. I might try to move some flower bulbs to those beds this fall - more because I don't have room for them anywhere else than for any hopes of having any success with the project. In a week or so, with or without additional amendments, I'm going to transplant alyssum seedlings to those beds and see how that works out. If it weren't for the dogs, I'd be using every inch of the back yard that I could get away with.