flowerlady, ac is always on. It goes from cool to warm. Sylvia hardly ever opens the window because pollen and dust affect her allergies. But it has been cooler and breezy here in the early morning and late afternoon and in the shade. Therefore I have been expanding my flower beds making more room for planting. AT the same time my goal is to create winding paths with more sitting in little nooks. I have gotten allot of ideas from you folks. Now I'm off to the Ocala Christmas parade. Felix

If you are part of an educational institution I highly encourage you to pay a visit to the New England Wildflower Society in Framingham, MA. They are probably have one of the largest collections of rare native plants of the North East, and I'm sure you might be able to acquire some good species for your local collection from them. Also, their gardens are absolutely spectacular. Here is a link that might be useful: New England Wildflower Society

Spedigrees, I had to look up wild parsnip Wild parsnip can cause phytophotodermatitis to the skin. If the plant juices come in contact with skin in the presence of sunlight, a rash and/or blistering can occur, as well as skin discoloration that may last several months. no wonder you mow! I think wild parsnip may equal posion ivy! Carol, LOL, if it makes you feel any better I was just comiserating with fellow gardeners at my community garden about the poor results we have gotten from carrots this year. The only plot that has some really beautiful carrots planted them very early, perhaps it is the warmer than usual spring that they are not happy with. Is the contemporary trend of using native plants in the landscape actually doing more harm to native plant populations? terrene, What I was trying (poorly) to communicate was the trend in newly developing areas in particular resort areas where folks don't want to pay for or spend their vacation time maintaining landscape they are not altering the existing landscape when they build under the auspices of native landscaping. The photo taken two years ago of a property in my community is a good example of what I am trying to say, I am certain if I walked around their yard it would be chock full of invasive plants that the homeowner would consider native because he didnÂt buy them at a nursery rather mother nature planted them.

Tom, that's really interesting about the relationship between the horned toads and red ants. We had giant red ants, nearly as big as carpenter ants, down around San Bernardino when I was a kid, and we also had horned toads. I don't think I've ever seen any since then. Janet, I think I'm going to have to be very careful with the grasses, now that you've said that some can be quite invasive. Naturally I knew that, but I had hoped the ones that we see in use as ornamentals would tend to be more well-behaved. I've got 6 acres of cleared pasture, but I don't think I'd call it prairie, since we're pretty well surrounded by oak trees everyplace else. I've also got a border of cedars that runs all the way around the property. The original owner put them there. I hate the things because of the way they tend to harbor ticks and they are such a fire hazard. My big flower border where I'd like to use some ornamental grasses for interest, runs across the front of the house section of the property, but it's on the far side of a humongous cement parking area that's about 40' x 130'. It's nearly the size of a city lot! If the bed on the far side was just a little strip, it wouldn't be so bad. It's not. When I ordered weed cloth, I had to measure it to get an idea of the size. It's 24' x 80' and was full of stuff like crabgrass, burr clover, stick-tights and poison oak; a big weed patch that had to be mowed all the time. After the first year, I couldn't stand to look at it any longer. The soil in the bed seems to be pretty good, as I've said before, but it isn't what you could call a 'yard' with all that concrete between it and the house. I began a weed control program and started putting in some of the larger foundation plants; a couple of maple trees, 3 crape myrtles, a Rose of Sharon and so on. The maples may eventually hang out over the parking lot, but it's so big that I can't see that it will be a problem. The soil in the bed seems to be pretty good, and looks to be a pretty neutral ph, but as I've said before, but it isn't what you could call a 'yard' with all that concrete between it and the house. Weeds are still my biggest problem, and most of them are a grass of one sort or another. The crabgrass/devilgrass is a nightmare. I'm going to try using the industrial-grade weed cloth that DeWitt sent to replace the stuff that failed, but the last thing I need is something that tends to be invasive, or that will let native weeds grow up through it. Somehow I managed to bring in a start of vinca major, and it's a disaster. Now it's another big bunch of tall grass with vinca leaves poking through it. I need to rip it all out. Are there any of the native grasses that are both non-invasive and also dense enough to pretty well choke out anything that tries to grow through them? I see them a lot in Shawnee and Tecumseh, but they are in planters with little else around them, so it's hard to tell what they would do in a garden like this, that tends to have a rampant grass population in spite of everything I can do to stop it. Oh, and I think you're the one who directed me to that silt test at Fine Gardening? Or was it Tom? I've forgotten. Anyway, thank you. I quit taking the mag a long time ago, so I hadn't seen it. It's a really good article, and I'm going to try it. The question seems to have already been answered. I won't be digging up any trailer-loads of the silty stuff in the chicken pens and putting it in the garden. I'll just stick to adding manure to the compost heap. I do have a neighbor who raises chicks and who sometimes brings the cedar bedding from the pens, so I add that also and let it compost down. It should not be any problem, should it? The bedding I add in from our sheep pens is generally oat straw or native grass hay and manure. I haven't worried about it too much and it does not seem to be seeding. I hope I'm not creating a monster by using it and will get a big surprise later on. Sorry I wandered around so far away from the original topic of garden grasses. It's hard to draw the line between controlling weed grasses and putting in the good ornamental ones and keep the thread separate. Pat ps: Janet, I absolutely love your photo of the wildflower up against the blue wall. It is so good, and has such a southwest feel about it. Have you ever thought of entering it in photo competition? Seriously. It's good.