Hi Alice - I'd love to trade for your Gaillardia 'Arizona Sun' Gaillardia 'Lorenziana' and Gaillardia 'Plume Red ' if you can find something you'd like on my trade list. I have started collecting mimulus, torenia coming soon. LMK Vickie

Hi I am looking for scented geraniums. I live on the coast about an hour from Olympia. Am also looking for Baby Blue Eyes floweres too.

Thank you! Gee, I am getting so much helpful information that I am filled with ideas. I decided to keep the pelargoniums inside as their bright red blooms perk up my house. Plus, they look so cute sitting in my Victorian Hungarian baby bath tub! The thing about zone 17 is that the three places I lived in that zone, the Richmond in San Francisco, Pacific Grove and Santa Cruz, is that they were all different. SF had tons of red spider mite and always there was mildew. PG had all fog, all the time, that was so heavy it dripped off the trees and made the ground look like it had rained. SC had lots of sun, but just south of it, on the Capitola border, it was very much like PG, lots of fog and chill. The mildew there was a surprise and finding a dehumidifier for my house required mail-order. Somehow, the people who gardened there seemed to know what they were doing and did fairly well or just accepted the losses. Growing the kinds of roses I like was not easy. My Graham Thomas (Austin) was very happy but any of the ones with a different colour on the edges than the center came out spotty and with the wrong colours. I will try to water often and pay attention to what is planted next to what. I have been talking to the neighbors and they are helping me adjust! My next step, once I take the plastic snow cover off (today was a mixture of snow and soft hail), is to put down lots of mulch. I have been told to consider 3-5 inches for anything that is not hardy as there is supposed to be a chance of frost through June 15. Sigh, lots of info!! I plan on tilling the second plot with compost--thanks for the recommendation, as I got excited and just used top soil for the first plot. I think that my bed with strawberries and daffodils is just going to stay as-is because it seems to be fine on its own. Luckily there are pine needles everywhere! I cleaned up some, but since I am a bit of a scrappy gardener, I left quite a bit. I think I will leave that still for the pee-balancing! Thanks to all who have helped. The ideas I have been given have made it all seem less of a culture shock. I think this might be the nicest and most helpful G-Web forum I've been on! Jennifer and her three dogs, Pablo Honey, Professor Gordon P. Farsworth and Lucy (the "P" stands for pee) :)

Hi there, if you are still after this one I can help - email me. Cheers Lillypilly