Michael, Thyme should work indefinitely. Janet, Callas not only could take a lot of water, they actually need a lot of water during their growing and blooming period. However after the bloom they need about 2-3 month of the rest (dormancy) to be ready for the next season. That is why water supply after the bloom have to be reduced and when foliage dies water should be eliminated completely for 2-3 months. Start watering again and they'll start growing.

Pam, I used to stuff mothballs down the holes, and sprinkle moth flakes on the surface. They just moved on to attack another area. Then came back after the stink had faded. I think it may work if the infestation isn't too bad, but I was under seige last year. Chipmunks, another pest, will shove the mothballs out of their holes as fast as I drop them in. If I put a rock over the hole, they simply dug a new exit nearby. If the damage turns out to be really bad in the spring, I'll probably continue using mouse bait blocks, but sprinkle moth flakes on the surface. It gets so expensive that it's depressing. Money that could be spent on more hostas. I've read that the vole populations naturally rise and fall periodically, so I'm just in a bad phase right now. Papou~ Don't envy us. The January thaws have only been happening for the past few years. The gardens used to be frozen solid until the end of March. The freeze/thaw cycles wreak havoc on many plants and shrubs. Right now we again have snow on the ground. Who knows what will happen next week. Dot~ I do have cats, and used to let them out. I had no rodent problems, and they also cleaned out my neighbors yards too. Once I started keeping them inside, my neighbors noticed they suddenly had voles, moles and chippies doing damage to their lawns and gardens. One neighbor moved here with children who chased any neighbor's cats with sticks, trying to beat them. They called dogs to them and tried to poke their eyes out through the bordering fences. My cats were kept in as soon as I saw this. In addition to rabbits and deer, we also have possum, raccoons and skunks. Last straw was a fox family moving in. Some of these critters could kill a cat outright. My cats all have their shots, but...If a raccoon or fox had rabies and fought with my cat, the injured animal could come home with rabies saliva on its fur and pass rabies to us while we tended to it. Best to keep my kitties inside, and deal with the voles as best as I can (not well). Ken~ I am using bait stations, just not the PVC variety. They do definitely help a LOT. It's just hard to completely cover every area, and keep them refilled all of the time. I spend a fortune on mouse bait blocks. Between the bait blocks and the slug bait, I'm going broke. :o( Denny~ Pam is right. Voles can climb, at least a little. I've had them climb up into smaller pots sitting on the patio and eat the entire hosta crown. I suspect they may be the culprits who went up the drainage holes in my whiskey barrels and ate all of the tulips and crocus I tried planting there one year. I would also think that a pot could restrict the growth of a large or giant variety. A few years ago I transplanted a Frances Williams that had roots at least 2 feet deep. A year or two later I could see fat new roots spreading out sideways along the surface, under the pine bark. They were about 3 feet long, in each direction. I don't have any pots that big. Thank you for all of the suggestions. I've just been depressed and whining, looking for sympathy. Pathetic. ~Bunnycat (Nancy)

I don't like global warming, because I already live where it is too hot. Some short term problems for all gardeners in all parts of the country: With longer growing season: More bugs. More plant diseases. Also, some traditional old reliable plants in northern areas may not perform as well as they did. (We can't grow a lot of things in the Deep South such as Hostas, Peonies...there are a lot of them!!) More serious: Loss of trees. This more of a concern in zone 9. We had a very warm fall, and the leaves on our trees were not falling. If San Antonio were to become frost free, I think many of our deciduous landscape trees would decline and die. That's scary. Fortunately, we got some decent cold weather and the leaves have finally fallen from our trees.

My grandmother did not get into Horchow very often, nor did she buy her clothes at Neiman-Marcus. She made lye soap. She washed her clothes in it and those of my grandfather, their 8 children and many of her 56 grandchildren. She cleaned the butcher house with that lye soap, a house where certain things occurred that some of the delicate-minded would consider murder, but it was survival, food for building muscles for those who worked hard, so that they could live. Fortunately, for her she did not live long enough to witness all this PC madness. She died from working in the cotton fields that had been sprayed with insecticides, bathing with lye soap and putting gray wash water on her garden. They farmed hundreds of acres and since there was not enough water from the pots that held gray water, my grandaddy transported water via horse and buggy. Poor horses. They were fed food from all those fields that were treated with insecticides. He too, died, before all this madness. My grandmother died at the tender age of 89 from emphysema and incidentally she had never smoked, was not married to a smoker and none of her children smoked, and none of their friends back then smoked. They were very pious and pure, no alcohol and no tobacco, and had no idea about drugs. My grandfather was killed by a young protester, high on pot, who lost control of his vehicle, and hit my little grandaddy as he was driving to start his day and open up his little neighborhood grocery store that he had been running for years, when at the ripe old age of 99, he died. It's a shame they used all those insecticides and lye, or they might have lived to see the downfall of this country.