Ingrid - Congratulations! I too am constantly asking my husband to see something amazing in the garden - he tries to be polite, but can barely stop himself from yawning. I also have a happy story about DdB. I have a really ancient plant, at least 50 years old, probably older. However, I did not even know it was there for years, because it was sort of surrounded and eaten by my huge Le Vesuve. Finally I noticed that one or two flowers of the Le Vesuve were a different color, form, etc. Eventually I realized that there was an old plant of DdB inside of the LV! You could not see hardly any of the bush, just a few blooms every year. Well, 15 years went by, and the winter before last the LV died back on one side - about the far 4 feet of its width just died. So, I cut out the dead wood. That was the side where the DdB was lurking. Low and behold - the DdB must have taken advantage of its liberation over this past Winter. I noticed a few days ago (it is now blooming) that I can actually see an entire DdB plant which is about 4 feet wide and 8 feet tall, and covered in blooms! That's why I love old roses - they persevere! Mine is the many petaled kind, and just stunning. Oh, another thought - re your comment that some bug has drilled a hole in the bud - sounds like that awful little red beetle (I forget its name). They do not come in ones, so you might want to look around and see if you see more. They look just like ladybugs, except no spots, and they have a long long nose which they use to drill holes in rose buds! You have to pick them off (they fall straight down if disturbed, so I hold a bag or something below them). You also have to get rid of the buds with the holes - they are now full of beetle eggs. Jackie

LOL Gloria! It seems like all the stars need to be aligned and the gods appeased properly for my Certo-made pepper jelly to set up. But, on a positive note, pepper syrup is good over chicken and pork, in curries and stir fry, in baked beans, and also in salad dressing, and in coleslaw. Ask me how I know, lol!

You must be in the mountains...a beutiful setting for this sweet little guy to try so hard and all alone. Only one year did I try to plant bulbs, a long laborous task. I really wanted to have a bounty of tulips seen around so many homes. And they did come up the next spring. But every day something was ripping them out and eating the bulbs. I blamed one of my dogs and never could figure out why she didn't get sick from them. Just the other day on RMG I read someones post mentioning a varment of some sort eating their bulbs and realized it wasn't the dog, but most likely Prairie Dogs at night. I wonder with this one blooming if it is the only bulb there. Just a curiosity.

Did I say three weeks? It was two weeks tomorrow I got the seed!! I checked the sale docket and it was dated Jan 26. I bought the seed on Ebay and I think it must have been fresh seed-a collection of 3 eucalypts, a Golden Dryandra and a Black Kennedia. All germinated and are in tubes or punnets. Mind you, I see a Honey Grevillea coming up that was on a previous batch and did nothing till I soaked it and put it in a deep tube. Maybe it's the seed raising mix. I bought a 25 litre bag rather than the small ones and it's Richgro. But the other germinated seeds are all in seed raising mix