Thank you pondbucket. um..I havent fertilized, lol. I figured the fish poop, etc..would be enuf? was I wrong? Well, the ones in the lotus pond I suppose get fert. I stick Jobe's tomato fert sticks in all the Thalia Dealbata, Waterlily pots and the lotus pond like every 3-4 weeks, the Lotus pond gets 4-5 sticks. The Iris that are in the lotus pond are not in pots. The iris inground there gets MG runoff from the brug, plus whenever I rinse out the prefilter on the pump, that bucket of water gets dumped on that iris and surrounding plants. The Iris in the bigger pond is in a pot which it totally outgrew this spring, very pot bound..I think the plastic pot is actually cracking. But I didnt want to repot it till after it bloomed, thinking if I messed with it, it wouldnt bloom yet again. That one's crown is at water level, coming up out of the pea rocks. It is visible. That area gets full sun all spring and the first half of the summer. In a couple weeks when its boiling hot and the sun is on a dif path, it will get more shade, uh oh, I hope..I did lotsa tree trimming this year :/ I was worried putting the hostas there thinking it may be too sunny for them, but they made it through last year just fine...if I remember correctly..I dont remember any burning. O wait a minute..I just realized the hosta you mean..the only one you can see, lol..in pic #1. That area gets morning sun till about noon? and late afternoon sun, is only shaded at the hottest part of the day, and not deeply shaded. I am pretty sure that Hosta is, I have no clue, lol. That Hosta is in a new spot now as of this spring so we'll see how it does. I just did the stream addition this spring..last year that was basically a pile of dirt with a couple plants and some mulch. If you wanna see more of my hosta pix, as well as a couple other plants, I have some I just posted the other day in the brug forum..follow the link.. Here is a link that might be useful: recent pix from the other day

make sure you get rid of the hot water in the hose. Yes, I intuitively figured that would not be good. And do it in a 5 gal bucket to recycle the water when it cools down. I do ground water but have a soaker hose one place, helps a lot, take care to turn it on really slow drip and leave it on longer rather than letting it shoot little jets. For certain plants, I've got some of those irrigation spikes you screw onto 2-liter bottles. Will have 24 going this year because lots of newer plants. Some people wouldn't like the aesthetics of it, but I don't like the aesthetics of dead/stressed plants. Eventually more plants will hide them or I won't need so many as plants mature more. For every silver lining, there is a cloud. I cut the bottoms out so I could fill with the hose or sprinkling can. So stuff gets in there, and I need to tie some screen over them. Plus the spikes get clogged with dirt, and it's a nuisance to clean them out. My neighbor loaned me a huge long soaker hose, and I really need water in that long strip area, but it's so cumbersome, harder to weed, waters the weeds, don't have it mulched yet, and the hose makes 2-1/2 turns winding through there. So I'm afraid I'll break some plants if I try to put it in now and have to wait until fall to move it out regardless. Usually I never water over plants in the heat of the day but made one exception for some wilder variety of shastas that invaded the whole bed. New roses if stressed water close to the ground and shade them for a bit. Oriental lilies do not like water in the sun, my wand isn't working right this year, splashed some accidentally. I couldn't stand to see the daisies wilting in near 100 degrees and had to do something, but sometimes they do pick up by evening on their own. Dug them all out and replaced with Becky. And bought that soaker hose which works perfect there because it's shorter. I got a laundry hose as an extender (guy at hardware store thought of that) because I didn't want the drip to start from the faucet and make more weeds. Now the drip starts and ends where I want it. That's in front where it really cooks in the sun and soil dries out fast even though I amended it. Tree roots suck it up and house foundation radiates heat.

Lost my first message so I'm trying again. I bought some variegated sweet flag, experiencing the same mishap of not knowing until I got it home that it is not hardy in my zone 4. I also learned of its need for moist soil so I created 3 bog planters, putting the grass in a pot with a mix of peat moss and clay and placing that pot inside another that is sealed at the bottom so it holds water. I put those pots in the ground and covered them with spaghnum moss. I'd like some advice on whether or not to bring them in over winter (Wisconsin) or just mulch them, leaving them in their pots. If I bring them in, what kind of care do they need? I didn't pay alot for them but I really like them and am afraid I won't be able to find replacements should they die over winter so I'm looking for the best survival technique! Ideas????

Jay, I hate to hear there was a fire on your brother-in-law and sister's property, but am glad they didn't lose any structures. It is very unfortunate that they are likely to lose soil to wind erosion in the absence of vegetation to hold it in place. It was horrible here yesterday, but I got up early and got busy cooking, so already had the food prepared before the fire pagers started going off. We only had one fire close to us, and it was on the property behind my gardening friend, Fred's, place. As we were on our way there, I was worried about his house, but the wind carried the fire away from his house, so it all worked out. His whole veggie garden plot is freshly plowed, so it would have served as a pretty good firebreak anyway. The wind was not as bad here as it was further west and northwest. I bet our highest wind gusts were in the upper 30s or lower 40s, but in those winds, fires still can be hard to control. Half of West Texas blew in with the dust storm in late afternoon and that part of it was just awful. We were home by dark, though, so it wasn't nearly as bad of a day as it could have been. Even here in our county, most of the fires were in the northern part of the county and not the southern part where I live. Some VFDs were much busier than we were. Today I have to go outside and gather up lawn furniture that blew around and birdfeeders that got blown down, etc. It was our first Red Flag Fire Warning of the year, and I hope it is a long time before we have another. It is supposed to rain here tomorrow and it if does, that will give us minor fire protection for a few days. Of course, it won't help with dry, dormant vegetation, but with the rain and lots of sunny, warm to hot winter days, we have a lot of green up in the fields already and that helps us a whole lot. I suppose yesterday's wind, extreme fire danger and dust storm reminds us all of what is coming with the strong spring winds. I sure was glad yesterday that it is so early in the season that I didn't have to worry about the wind beating the living daylights out of a garden full of plants. Dawn