The nice thing about Heuchera, is that fast TC process gives you a mature plant in 3-4 years quite easily. The hybridizer and grower understands what the plant is going to do before it hits market. Year 5 is release. USUALLY it is longer than that, but in the best case when you have a definite winner it can be that quick. While it is very much possible to get hundreds of thousands in 40 months, that's almost never the case. It's always a limited release the first year or 2. At my last job I was the buyer and grower, trust me, it's a TOTAL PITA securing new varieties. Heuchera are easy to grow and IN GENERAL (lets face it, there are always exceptions) all varieties prefer a certain set of growing conditions. So there isn't this terrible need to trial them nationwide for gardenworthiness. Much like hostas, or daylilies... easy to grow if you give them the right conditions. The problem comes in that the gardening public isn't always educated correctly. Not a dig against the gardening public, education is OUR (horticulturists collectively- I do my best) responsibility. Sometimes we do a bad job (IMO my industry failed miserably with the whole hybrid Echinacea thing, and those were definitely a long trial time, despite what people might think). Terra Nova has done a pretty good job with giving what species are in a given variety's background. If it has strong villosa breeding you know it's going to tolerate more heat and humidity and heavier soil. If it is mostly micrantha, it will probably suffer in winter in the far north and in high heat/drought. But in general, Heuchera want gritty soils. They like excellent drainage, period. Even villosa, pubescens, and americana (woodland dwellers) derived varieties really appreciate a gritty soil. The whole Limerock Ruby Coreopsis thing is a whole other story... basically 1 nursery making an entire industry look like Aholes with a capital A by NOT trialing a plant and giving false information about hardiness. It's still hard to sell new Coreopsis, despite some of them being bigtime winners. 2 great ones: Route 66 and Star Cluster. The Plant Geek www.confessionsofaplantgeek.com www.botanophilia.com www.facebook.com/botanophilia

I think my situation is resolved. Monday I have an event for work that will end at 2, so instead of going back to the office I will just take the rest of the day off & drive out to the one extension office in VA that tests gauges. I will make it worth the trip by stopping off at a berry farm on the way back. I haven't done any blackberries yet this summer. This weekend I can still take advantage of tomato season by BWBing a double batch of Annie's salsa, and since my Clear Jel finally came in I can defrost my prepared sour cherries & make pie filling. Next year I will send my gauge to Presto in March. Malon, you're right that they told me the regulator should be rocking when the gauge reads 15 psi. I thought they meant when the water first boiled. But of course, in case of a linearity error I would rather not trust that for canning at 11. Hysteresis is a problem that I don't think calibration would necessarily solve. If the gauge is reading different on the way up vs. on the way down, there's not much you can do. Seems like the canning procedure is designed to eliminate as much of this as possible, so if I can keep the gauge steady I think I'll be ok. I'm having hysteresis problems at work, it makes my data plots appear as very wide bands and my target curves can't id whether the current state is headed up or down. Maybe my next job will be in control theory where things can be more realistic than having only one input to a target output. And here I thought the only way canning would define my career path would be my need for a job with time off to can during the summer! Thanks everyone for the advice, I will report on this new exciting testing device being hidden away at the edge of the state. Melissa

Thank you all for the kind words! I am SO happy to have finally found my little marble for baking area. It's not very big...but it weighs a TON :) The dresser is wonderful, too. I love the green knobs! We're thinking a slightly lighter shade is what we'll paint the walls, but only the top 1/3 or so. We're thinking about creamy white, painted beadboard on the lower 2/3. Not sure about the rest, but we want something easy to clean, but still pretty with some floral (and bunny) plates displayed against the green!

Spotty higher pH can happen if you got the soil off of one particular section of the pile...that happened to contain the old B horizon with some limestone in it! In my case, I got the old subsoil on my lot, so it just kind of stank all around. * You said you targeted our phosphorus level higher than your own lawn. Is this due to the pH difference or something else? Is phosphorus bound in the soil at higher pH's, and is our pH (7.1 - 7.3) high enough to cause that? pH. If you look at the availability of P by pH, it drops as pH rises above seven. You're not that far over, the binding isn't extreme, so I just boosted the numbers a little bit. Your standard is around 220, most people with slightly acidic pH would be around 200. In your case, I wouldn't blink at anything between 200 and 300. I never use my own soil as a standard, per se, for anybody else's. Mine have given in to some experimental stuff, plus I've over-enhanced the gardens to match the (extreme) density and (extraordinarily high) performance I demand they support. My current P levels in the garden push 1,000. * What kind of quality issues can we expect from the low phosphorus level until it's corrected? Thin, weak, sparse growth that gets sick and dies easily, discolors easily, grows poorly, and generally doesn't look at all good. Installed sod would tend to thin out and die back over the course of a year or so if it isn't corrected, resulting in a lot of thin patches and blank areas. N, P, and K are the big three and absolutely have to be there in the correct proportions (N we take care of on an as-needed basis). * It sounds like the Milorganite is great stuff, but I'm very sensitive to odors, so I don't think it's a good fit for our lawn. If we used ferrous sulfate instead (being careful to sweep it off the concrete), what rate and frequency would you recommend? I assume we don't need to worry about lowering the soil pH too much with the ferrous sulfate since the starting pH is above 7.0. I'd be comfortable with ferrous sulfate (monohydrate or pentahydrate, it doesn't matter) at 3 pounds per thousand square feet in April, early October, and perhaps early November if the weather's holding. Keep an eye on the pH in this case, though, as iron sulfate is about an eighth as acidifying as pure elemental sulfur and does NOT require digging in to work! Never use iron during hotter months or when the soil's going to freeze solid for winter within two or three weeks of use.