I planted some big pricey ones last year and they died by mid summer. They were so beautiful, I tried again this year with inexpensive four inch pots. They looked fairly unhappy for a good month after I planted them, but now they are truly beautiful, despite our positively searing heat for the past several weeks. I have faithfully deadheaded this year (right after the petals drop) and that seems to be important. Not only does the plant make more blooms, but the stems and leaves seem to get a new lease on life too after deadheading. The other difference is we've had more rain this year. I expect that has also helped. I will be keeping my fingers crossed for them to overwinter, but even if they don't, I'll probably get more next year. They are gorgeous next to blue salvia farinacea and the so-called orange sedge.

I checked with Bayers 800 number and they said their product does not cover coneflower rosette mite. Andre Viette's nursery didn't have an answer either, but I did find one right here at this website. Here's what I learned . . . On Gardenweb there was a similar post in early July with lots of replies regarding this mite and AY. All there came up with no fix for the coneflower mite. Most everyone replying there said they were going to get rid of all their coneflowers! There was one response though that seemed to walk a middle line. Here it is quoted in the next paragraph: "But for the echinacea, I have had infected plants that i just remove the infected blooms as i saw them ... without going to extra step of "litter removal" later in the year.... and then later that same year or the next season they bloom out just fine. For me is on par with the work of other garden jobs... without being too much of a pain." I'd like to give her technique a try. What do I have to lose? I don't want to dig out all my coneflowers! The mites get into SOME of the buds, but apparently not all. Cutting off what looks like an affected flower in the spring isn't too much work. You'd get the mites then and could dispose of them so they don't hatch out to return to your garden the next year. The next step would be to get rid of the foliage in the fall so eggs can't winter over. And if you can, pull away all the mulch and you'd be done. Maybe this will work for you. I'd like to know what they're going to replace their coneflowers with??? In Heaven there will be NO gardening problems!

Sounds like Pinata to me-that's what immediately came to mind on reading your post. The link below contains some pictures of my pinata, showing bloom development/color changes as it ages. I happen to like Pinata a good deal, even though it is a slow grower, but I knew what I was buying when I purchased it-I'm sure it was quite a 'surprise' when yours started to bloom! Here is a link that might be useful: Garden Web Rose Gallery

First of all, how do you post pictures here? Second, the link 'effects of glyphosate on tomato' left above by jean001a has a picture of a glyphosphate effected tomato plant and it looks just like mine do. To: dickiefickle, all my garden plants are planted in a garden, in the ground, except for a cucumber and a pepper. One problem I had, which is why I'm having such a bad weed problem, is that when I first decided to plant this garden, my plan was to use the rear-tine tiller owned by my landlord to till all the soil in the garden area, then to till in some bulk combo soil. However, the tiller has both a seized transmission and engine, so its useless. This meant that I had to plant the garden in what was currently a lawn area, with grass and weeds. So I planted the plants just like I would plant a shrub or perennial. I dug holes about 14"-16" in diameter, about 14" deep, then I mixed my soil up and filed these holes, then planted the plants in the holes. Before planting, I didnt spray Roundup on the garden area, because I figured my landlord would want it to be a lawn again in the future, after the garden was picked. But later, she agreed to allow me to spray it, but by that time the garden was 3 weeks old. However, the grass and weeds are still growing, so I first just weed-wacked them, but as the veggies grew larger, I couldnt take the chance of weed wacking the veggies by accident. But there are too many to pull every few days, so i did what I would normally do in an ornamental bed. I first pulled the weeds under the drip line of the veggie plants, then I carefully sprayed Roundup to the other weeds, with the wand very low to the ground, on a non-windy day. Also to dickiefickle: As far as my soil being too moist, the holes I'm growing in are 14-16" deep, and we live on the East coast where we have a drought just about every summer, where it wont rain for weeks at a time. Most watering is done by hand, and I never water too much or too often. Usually every 3 days or so, unless it rains, so the soil is never too wet for very long. However, I planted a Dahlia, a 40" variety called 'Contraste' back on about May 5. It already had a long stem growing out of the tuber, so once I planted it, it immediately was 3" above ground and started growing leaves at once. Then on about May 20, we had an extremely rare 7 day long rain spell, where it rained on and off every day, and was constantly overcast. It actually rained about 3-5 hours per day. One day after the rain ended, the sun came out and some plants were wilting a little initially due to the bright sun for the first time in 8 days, but then most plants perked back up, except for the one Dahlia. It continued to wilt for 8 more days, til I dug down to the tuber, and discovered that it had rotted from the bottom up and was slimy and easily crushed in my hands. ****Anyway, my most important question at this point is: Now that I've pruned the tomatoes back below the yellowing areas on top of main stem and laterals, will those tomatoes grow new stems from the area where pruned like most plants do(2 or more new stems), or will no new growth start where pruned, and only new lateral will grow from between the main stem and leaf branches? How do tomatoes normally react to their stems being pruned?