I have been absolutely amazed how well my "Endless Summer" blue hydrangea has done in full sun, heat & drought here in Roanoke, VA where the summer's have been brutally hot & dry for the last few years, records were set! Probably because I planted it in half-shade for the first few yrs. it was slow to "get going" & took 3-4 yrs. to get a bloom. Moved it to full sun, and frankly fully expected it to croak because I never watered it. It thrived!!! And now at @ 2 ft. it blooms very well! I really love it now! I don't think they get over 4 ft.

Sorry to be late here too, but figured I would add my herb-ituaries to the list. Deaths Cucumbers - I haven't had any luck this year with cukes. The seeds I set barely germinated, then died. I bought plants after the freeze, but it was still cool and all but two of them died. Bush Beans - They were germinating and I had a few that had sprouted. I covered them with a sheet, but no luck- they all went to bean heaven. Squash - My crookneck squash all died. I wimped out and bough some seedlings from Lowes today to replace those. Survivors: Tomatoes - I covered them with buckets and they all lived. Strangely enough, I even have blooms already setting on some of my Better Boys. Peppers - Bell peppers lived with covering. Banana peppers barely pulled through, too. Squash - Zucchini squash fared very well. I only lost one out of 9 plants. Corn - I was worried because it was only 2 inches tall when the frost hit last week, but it lived and seems to be growing fine now. Broccoli - Not surprising, since it's a cool weather crop. My broccoli is the biggest thing in my garden right now. Morning Glories - About half lived!

Folks, I forgot to update that 2011 is the Year of Camera Experiment. I used to have to wait for the perfect lighting either dawn or sunset, lol! and with certain roses they'd mushroom out and lose their spirals by then, haha! So this year I started messing with the manual settings of my Canon Rebel XSi. I sent these to Jim first to look at, lol! The Ralph Lauren Cover Boy model for the camera is Jim's Baby Napoleon Distant Drums :D 1. Here is the default Sports setting 2. Here is the TV setting of 160 with the wrong fluorescent instead of the sunlight setting but still kind of cool 3. Here is a TV setting of 250 with sunlight setting 4. Here is my favorite TV setting of 200 with sunlight setting I also forgot to demo my frustrations with how HTs mushroom out into moppy blooms with open stamens in the heat... and when it gets cooler HTs start to "normalize"; not quite there but better... I also forgot to show 2 more blooms. Crepuscule is going to be shovel-pruned next year. It started out as a 5" band and grew to be a 6' tall rose, but after the first winter it had to be cut down to a 7" rose from which it never regained much vitality afterwards. It doesn't have quite enough scent for me to have patience. Only highly fragrant roses get coddled in my garden, lol! Another rose, Aromatherapy. This rose is highly fragrant and the color is the perfect deeper bubblegum pink that is slower to fade. But it is highly BS vulnerable and requires a lot of Gardenville sea tea to keep it healthy- way too expensive to sustain, lol! It is coddled because of the fragrance. I may replace it in a few years with Laguna if a friend from England likes her Laguna. I would replace Aromatherapy with Belinda's Dream which is HT PERFECT in bloom form! but the pink is not the deep pink alas!

Jenni...she thought "you" had a "fringe" on your bag you made..I was just trying to explain to her what it was. I love these "rag" quilts and bags. My daughter who does not sew....is attempting to make one...She is doing okay on it. I found her a real nice older (metal) singer maching with several different stitches...at a yard sale for $10.00 in a cabnet. She's having fun with it. She was wanting a maching to do stitches on her scrapbooking things. patti