Pretty sunflowers. Cute little bee on the first one. Brenda, I am sure I will be ordering more daylilies next year, once I see what happens with my garden this year. This year we are trying to concentrate on the back around the deck area. I thought these little ones would look good along the walk at the bottom of the steps, with lavender mustead, maybe. I did have a look at F&H website. Sierra

Sharon, What exactly is your trial for Chuck? Like Gil, War Chief and Garden Bride didn't survive for me. I had Garden bride fail twice. I am trying both these iris one more time as they were in my order this year again. The both have a very prime location. I have tried the recommended planting an inch deeper, that Chuch suggests on his site for some of the ones I planted the last 3-5 years. I also tried 1/2 inch deep. I used sand on some in case my soil was to heavy and held moisture to long in spring and rotted the rhizomes. Figured sand would be more free draining. I should note here that my soil is heavy clay, but very well ammended with compost and peat and manure...over the last 13 years. So it is not as heavy as straight heavy clay soil. I did this with TB rebloomers, TB, BB, SDB's and MDB's. My findings are that most survive but just don't bloom. I did lose a couple rebloomers...I am assuming from planting a bit deeper. I had one rebloomer out of 7 bloom last year. It was Crimson Snow. This year I raised the ones I had planted a little deeper to soil level in early spring...and most bloomed for me. I planted MTB 'BumbleBee Delight' 1 inch deeper with sand and it bloomed the year after planting...with several stems.(last summer) This summer however it only had one flowering stem, but had lots of new fans. Devenshire Cream and Sweet Musette seem to be my most reliable TB's. They have been blooming consistantly in my garden for the last 5 years. Immortality is doing its best to keep up as well...but it hasn't been in the garden as long...only 3 years. I was a bit surprised to lose several over last winter, as I have not had that many iris loses before. They were new ones that had been planted last summer. I believe weather has a big role on if they will survive the first year. One more side note. The TB rebloomers do NOT rebloom for me. However they do extend my iris season, as they bloom at the end of the TB season. About the time that the siberians start blooming. Sierra

Thank-you, Renee. I'm glad to hear that you enjoyed them. iris_gal, I don't want to ask any stupid questions, but I don't know where you are in your camera tweaking abilities. What ISO are you using and is it a zoom lens? If you're really zoomed in on something, the shutter and ISO can need to be set really fast in order to get clear photos. The kit lens is the lens that comes packaged with the camera if you choose to buy a set and not just the body (which I should be able to do the next time I upgrade). The live view was, honestly, a big disappointment. The shutter doesn't trigger the auto focus when in live view. You have to press the * button (on the back/top of the camera) to initiate auto focus, then release it, and then press the shutter. On top of all that, you even have to change the factory settings just to be able to AF that way. I had grown very accustomed to using an lcd for shooting, but now I'm so used to using the viewfinder that I don't even bother with live view anymore. It drove me crazy for about a week and I haven't looked back since. You wouldn't believe how long my battery lasts now, too. Tried to make that message short too. Brock

You know, iris_gal, MS always had wonderfully healthy foliage, so maybe it was just in a high nitrogen pocket in it's old bed (?) Thank-you for your considerate words, Shadow. We're still a couple of wrecks (I even had a nosebleed to add to the party today) and we still didn't finish planting those *$%# pines! I hope that it doesn't bog down the load time when I add to my posts rather than starting another. Let me know if it's causing problems or if you've been missing them because you didn't even know I added them. Here's what was open today: 'Garnet Jewelry' (not sure where the "garnet" comes in, but I really like it) 'Sailor' 'Striped Moonbeam' (an OGB- AB - bought it for the foliage which is variegated, but with irregular white pinstripes (not the regular blotches) I'd have a photo of the foliage, but it looks crummy right now) 'Merit' (again) 'Cheerful Doll' 'Devilish Nature' 'Easter' (yep, it's an SDB blooming with the first TBs - as is 'Flirting Again') 'Decipher' (really dark this year - looks black from afar) 'Decipher' buds (the spathes really stood out from across the garden - very dark (as are the spathes on 'Cheerful Doll')