Hi - would love to trade for both your daisies; could I send you my list? Doreen.

Janice, I have a Patriot and an Albo Marginata that behaved the same way this year for me, with the Patriot being far worse. They're potted and right next to each other, so odds are their common behaviour is caused by some environmental factor. Newer growth on the Albo Marginata has been much more normal and I'm now starting to see some new leaves on the Patriot as well that look far less heavily curled and puckered than the growth from April. Me thinks we're likely dealing with a moisture related issue during a critical stage of development. You're right, they look absolutely dreadful, don't they? At this point with the newer growth being much more normal I'm not overly concerned, I think they'll be back as normal next year. I am concerned however about the canine destruction they are undergoing at the moment: my two Rotties just LOVE to casually wander up to them and take a big chunk out of a leaf. I have one Albo (not the crinkly one) that has more petioles WITHOUT leaves than with. Grrrr...

I've got squirrel baffles on all my feeder poles, but after what you have said, I am tempted to switch to slinkys just for the entertainment value. :-)

Yes crabapples can and are used to pollinate apple trees. The resulting fruit will always be the same variety as the mother tree and the seeds will actually be a hybrid of the two parents. Since we do not eat the seeds this works perfectly fine. Many large scale commercial orchards have used crabapples in the past to pollinate large fields of a single apple variety . Many commercial apple tree sources still grow and offer some ornamental crabs for this purpose. The home grower can use them too for pollination if needed assuming the crabapple bloom overlaps enough with the apple variety you are growing for good pollination (usually they do). Most crabs on the market are ornamental (have small fruit) but some really good larger fruited crabs do exist (Whitney, Centennial, Chestnut ect). My experience with large fruited crabapples is that they do not store well and get soft quickly. They can be excellent to eat fresh when picked at the peak of perfection. I canned many a jar of pickled whitney crabapples in my youth. The sweetest crab I have ever eaten is Trail which is yellow fruited. Very popular in the Dakotas and Northern Minnesota. Almost too sweet but definitely delicious.