Good Morning, Everyone! Thank you all for the "welcome back". I missed each and every one of you. Stormy here today on this Good Friday. Dark and a bit chilly out. Good weather for gardens though. Glad for the rain though. We've had high temps and high, dry winds this past week and wildfires every day. Nothing close to here, but close enough that I could smell the smoke. My dogs erupted in chorus with every firetruck that passed by over on the highway.(hehehe). I took pictures of the gardens on the 31st. Glad I did, as the hot, dry winds dried out all the pretty yellow Jonquils later that day. Blasted hot winds ruined them before our Easter Sunday family picnic and egg hunt. They were magnificent in chorus with the yellow forsythias, white Bridle's Wreath, and Redbud trees now in full bloom all over the garden. My beloved Jane Magnolia is breathtakingly beautiful this year and smells so wonderful. I planted out some Orange Perfection Phlox yesterday. Tried them last year, but they didn't make it. This rain may ensure these do. I dug around in the bin at the store until I found one, just one package with moist peat inside. Holding it up to to sunlight, I could just make out something possibly alive in that dark green plastic bag. Makes me mad to pay five bucks for dead rootstock. They are not the best looking root stocks I ever saw, but think they will make it. I only need one to survive to establish a nice clump this year for next year's blooms. I also planted a package of purple Liatris and a package of Freesia bulbs for summer blooms. I love the smell of Freesia. Yummy. All the Peonies are up and beginning to make tiny flower buds. Hopefully the red ones and deep magenta ones will bloom this year too. If they do, it will be their first time. Some deer came into the yard this winter and ate the top branches off the one surviving River birch sapling, but it is recovering nicely now. I caged it with a tomato cage and for now they are leaving it alone. They are "camped" up on the hill, hiding in wait for my juicy, delicious roses to start blooming, no doubt. :[ I've been taking the dogs for walks up there every morning and hopefully their pee and poop will make them think twice about coming any closer to the back yard. My English Shepherd could easily take down a whitetail deer. DH said this weekend he would finish stretching field fence around on the inside of the existing barbed wire fencing to keep out critters. That won't keep deer out, but it will keep our dogs in, so we can let them run loose on the property. That will be great. They need the exercise and I need them to do their job protecting the place. They love it, too. Hopefully the raccoons & coyotes will take the hint. Keep Out! Anyhow, so far so good. Gotta go check on my chicks. They poopy up their water really fast and will be ready for breakfast. :) Talk to you guys later. ~Annie

Thanks everyone! He's an awesome guy. He always lets me put "one more hosta" on the cart or one more Christmas light display in the yard. He digs the holes, climbs the roof, and is learning to control the "rolling of the eyes" when I make him move a hosta or some of our Christmas lights "two inches to the left". This part of the garden has special meaning to him. When we bought our home, this bed was a mess of overgrown weeds, Snow on the Mountain, and a lone mum. The mum didn't bloom for the first two years. One day in October, he got a called from his niece who told him that his brother had died. Distraught, he hung up the phone and stepped outside. He looked down at that mum and low and behold, he saw a single flower, that seemed to come from nowhere. Ever since, that mum has flowered profusely. In his heart he believes that flowering mum was a sign from his brother's deceased wife that everything was going to be OK. He's such a softy! But, this is a testament that gardening can heal the soul. Karen, I don't do theme gardens either. This was totally my DH's idea. However, isn't it great that we can honor our family members who served in the military in our gardens. I have Dawn's Early Light on the other side of that bed, I might switch it with Chesapeake Bay that is to the left of Loyalist and American Hero. You'll have to post pictures when you get yours done! Gesila

Devilwoman, Oh, yes, they absolutely will grow in shade. I have grown them myself for about 25 years, and my dad grew them for as far back as I can remember. In Texas, I had them in morning sun/afternoon shade in slightly-amended black gumbo clay soil. Here in Oklahoma, I have them in several places. Around the house, they are in moderately well-amended red clay soil in beds that contain trees, shrubs, groundcovers, perennials (including the four o'clocks) and annuals and they get morning shade most of the day, with an hour or two of sun at mid-day. I also have them on the south side of the house in lightly-amended red clay soil and they get sun from about 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. I even have them in sandy loam under a pecan tree in heavy shade, although they might get a little sun/dappled shade in the late afternoon. They do get really tall (5') under the shade of that pecan tree but not really leggy (as in lots of stem and few leaves) and they do bloom in the full shade, but not as much as they bloom in slightly more sun. I have a few on both the the south side and the west side of my veggie garden in the cottage border that surrounds the garden. There, they are in well-amended clay on the south side and well-amended sandy loam on the west side and in full sun on the south, and full sun until about 4 p.m. on the west. In these two beds, they bloom the best. But, they do bloom in the shadier spots as well. I have several colors of 4 o'clocks, but mostly the native fuschsia to dark pink colored ones. I have some white-flowered ones and pale yellow flowered ones (but not very many) that I got from Select Seed Antique Flowers, and some from one of the seed companies that are called Tea Time Rose. The only ones that have NOT grown very well for me are the ones with broken colors. They will grow well in the first year they are planted, but do not come back reliably. All of the four o'clocks have a lovely scent at nighttime too. Sometimes the ones in full sun wilt, and if they wilt really badly, leaves may yellow and fall off. In drought years when I gave up and simply stopped watering, they have died back to the ground, but they came back once rain started falling again. They are one of my favorite flowers because they are so tough, adaptable and reliable. Dawn

awww......so sweet! I love baby animals! Penny