Amazing! Absolutely amazing! Cindee, I wondered what happened to you, but I sort of disappeared myself with life's mishappenings. I was very particular that year about documenting, and I suspect that your double is an Exotica X Dancing Queen. I didn't cross a double with Charisma. I do hope that eventually, you and Huan will share a division with me, so I can see the results in person. Gee! I wish school wasn't so hectic. I would absolutely love to hybridize, share and watch all of the results. Both you and Huan have treasures! My heart is pleased to have been part of it... My notes from that year. Exotica X Dancing Queen Exotica X Ster Van Holland Exotica X ? Picotee X Pasadena Emerald X S&H Papilio (4 pods) Voodoo X Supreme Garden Santa Cruz X Amourette Cocktail X ? La Paz X Misty Lemon & Lime X Limona Santa Cruz X (Not)Royal Velvet San Remoes X Pink Impression San Remoes X Pink Impression Exotic Star X La Paz Supreme Garden X Ruby Meyer Misty X ? Ruby Meyer X ? Red Pearl X Black Pearl Exotic Star X La Paz Exotic Star X ? Royal Velvet X Santa Cruz Red Pearl X Dancing Queen Lemon & Lime X Santa Cruz Supreme Garden X ? Exotica X ? Limona X ? Voodoo X Voodoo Voodoo X Sumatra Voodoo X Gilmar Voodoo X Gilmar Santa Cruz X Amourette Black Pearl X Red Pearl Amourette X Santa Cruz Black Pearl X Red Pearl Voodoo X Sumatra Voodoo X ? Gran Cruz X Charisma Charisma X ? Voodoo X ? Supreme Garden X ? Voodoo X Sumatra Voodoo X Sumatra Voodoo X Sumatra Voodoo X Sumatra Limona X Santa Cruz Santa Cruz X ? Red Pearl X Lavender Pink X ? Red Pearl X ? Red & White X Lavender Charisma X Scarlet Baby Charisma X Lemon & Lime Black Pearl X Red Pearl Red Pearl X Lavender Charisma X Scarlet Baby Charisma X Lavender Charisma X Lavender Ann

Update: I checked the berries, and they're all blanks! Not a single seed in any of the ones I pulled out. Curiouser and curiouser....... I was kind of expecting not very many seeds in each one, just because of the circumstances and their general appearance. All it takes is a single seed to trigger fruit formation. It's not the first time I've seen blanks either. Some Aechmeas, Bills, etc. regularly form berries with nothing inside. What I don't get is why this one plant did that and not the rest. The only thing I can think of is that the act of fiddling with the flowers to remove the anthers must have tricked it into thinking it was going to be a mommy when it wasn't. Leave it to MP to have a hysterical pregnancy!

Claire, very inventive. That idea of putting in the wire fencing down the side of the house and then putting rambling roses on stilts running on the top is a riot! I used to love your rose arch so I hope this becomes a great substitute. It looks great so far. And to surround the tasty phlox with the phlox the critters don’t like to eat, genius...lol. Hope that works out. From a distance, that green fencing is not very noticeable. That is such a sweet birdhouse, teapot. Your 8 year old must be so excited to see birds and babies in it! It's such a positive lesson in seeing the rewards from making something with your own hands, to actually end up with birds in it. Gee, I didn’t know you didn’t have turkeys, Claire, but I guess Jane may pick up the slack in that area. How fun! Hope they stick around, Jane. Sorry Jane, didn’t mean to burst your bubble with the chipmunks. It is really just a rumor with no basis in fact that I am aware of…..how’s that, better? (g)

Dawn and GM, so sorry to hear about your trials and tribulations. As for me, I'm struggling trying to get my iris bed prepared and it is raining nearly every other day. The ground is saturated and smells spoiled. One of the pots containing my peppers and petunias got it's drainage hole plugged somehow and so I lost what was in that pot. Two of my Datura have died because of the water and DGS broke one. On the plus side, though, the remaining four are getting ready to bloom. They are not very tall and do not have many leaves so I hope the plants will be able to support these huge flowers. I have lost other plants as well, due to the standing water, among which were a couple of Cup and Saucer vines I had nursed along all spring and some english lavender I was really looking forward to. DGS is on summer vacation now and all he wants to do is watch TV and play video games and talk on the phone. He'll be a senior in HS next fall. He's kinda getting on my last nerve. I'm trying to help him get a summer job and it's not easy because he has poor math skills. Last summer he worked at Sonic and it was a struggle because he was car-hopping and he had so much trouble making change, got accused of stealing $80 and then they found they'd made a mistake in their calculations and they had to apologize to him but it left a sour taste in all of our mouths because they treated him so bad when they thought he was a thief. Yesterday we had to go buy stuff for Church camp, had to get groceries and went to several places picking up applications and I helped him apply on-line at Wal-Mart and K-Mart. You end up taking a test and everything. So that ate up most of my day because I had to field phone calls while he was working on his applications since he thinks you can't just let the phone ring, ever, and his friends call over and over and over. We just got a call from Wal-mart and he has an apppointment to talk to someone at 9pm tomorrow so they're probably considering him for night stocking. I sure hope he gets hired. On top of that, my computer is acting worse and worse all the time. It was fine till I had to install all that software when I got at&t high-speed internet. It has slowed my computer down big-time and sometimes I just have to reboot because it locks up so often. Last night I did a Norton scan, which didn't find anything, then I did an AVG scan which found 122 things to fix. Unfortunately, my computer is not working much better after all that, so I will probably do a defrag today and see what else I can do. This morning I worked outside in the mud trying to get a little further in the iris bed and now it's hot. I'm used to working in an air-conditioned office so I come inside when it gets hot, too. I'm so sad to hear about the kitten. It sounds like its mother was probably dumped off sometime previously and has fended for herself after having learned not to trust people. She will teach that to her kits, if they survive in the wild. The kits can be tamed, but the mother is another story. And do watch that bite. I was bitten by a neighbor's Siamese. He liked to hang out on our front porch and I would always pet him. One day while I was petting him he just sunk one of his fangs into my hand, just below my middle and index fingers. Before I could get in to see the doctor, I had a lump on my hand the size of half a golf-ball and there was a red streak going up my arm. The neighbors denied he was their cat and later on said they "gave him to friends who lived in the country". You can bet your bottom dollar that's a nice way of saying they "carried him off". Jerks. GM, I have plans to clean things out this winter and have a big sale next spring. The sale we had this spring was extra plants and things from the attic. It's really nice to have the attic cleaned out, but the rest of the house needs it badly. Sometimes it's good to whine. Hugs to both of you.