Maryl, Yes, it is good to have 3 daughters, that are always helping me out some kind of way.Two of them live just 9 miles away and my third daughter lives in N. C. but she comes to visit every couple years.And shes always thinking of what she can get for me when she comes, I think.one year, she thought my recliner wasn't confortable enough, for some one with a bad back I guess, so she bought me a new recliner. I found the photo I took of beautiful edging with its first bloom this year, and it bloomed May 9th for first bloom, and last bloom August 26th, so it really did bloom a long time.I didn't have as many rebloom scapes as the year before, but, we did have a miserable winter, and I seen on the weather channel a few days ago, that they expecting the same for this coming winter, too. jean

Maryl, These were planted last year and the seeds came up this year. Most of them were seeds my neighbor had collected from her blooms the year before. They are prolific self sowers, and do their own winter sowing (in spades!) as you can see. I don't think you would call them perennials, just self re-seeders. Thanks, Mantis. I love that rose. Jean and Lisa. That vine is about four or five years old. I bought it and it was beautiful the first year, but I left it out, and it froze, and I assumed died that winter. In the spring, it went into the compost pile and I noticed green a few weeks later on it; a lot of new shoots, so I pulled it out and planted it and it bloomed beautifully that spring. It goes in the green house each winter after that...if it wanted to live that much, it deserved help. It always a lovely vine even when I put it in the green house in the late fall, and doesn't go dormant unless I withhold water. Lisa, I have the red honeysuckle and this Mandavella, but most vines I have had tend to start growing rampantly and are tough to confine, so I don't do many...but there is a stephanotis vine in the greenhouse that was bought it as a twig, (you know those little two inch cube pots) and it is huge now, and it doesn't like being anywhere else, but the greenhouse, It bloomed beautifully this year (first bloom season) Go figure. I really don't know how to really treat it. kay

Here's a fairly large Double Knock Out in the front yard--in the divider between my property and the neighbor's. Haven't had time to anything with it yet this year, so its looking a bit wild and woolley--and maybe lop-sided. I'll try to get some pruning done before the season is over. : ) Light blue irises came with the property when I bought my house thirty something years ago--don't know their name, but they bloom forever (for an iris). Another iris--name unknown. Sure is lovely. Here's a terrific fully packed white peony called Festiva Maxima--love that blood-red like marking in the middle of the blooms. I read somewhere once that this old classic is a good choice for more southerly gardeners, but I don't remember why. I have 4 of them. BIG blooms. Its getting so exciting now that things are nearly ready to bloom--can't believe the buds all over the yard--have never seen so many. Oddly, however, my hybrid teas are not taking over the show like they usually do. I thought with the mild winter we had, they would do terrifically well, but it seems the shrubs and floribundas are the ones doing best. But maybe that will all change in the next few weeks. This is about 3 weeks early for my roses--any of them--to be blooming. Kate

Hopefully, someone can help. Tried planting 2-3 cucumbers in a 23" diameter container last season, planted first week of June. Ended up with maybe 8-10 cucumbers through the growing season (June-October). Leaves turned yellow and brown and some plants just died and needed to be replaced. Over the years, would plant about 6 plants in a ground garden which always produced tons of beautiful cucumbers. That isn't an option anymore. I know I have read that the containers need to be larger for cukes to be healthy & produce. Maybe the 23" diameter container was not big enough? One thing I was told wrong by a gardening store which might have been the "killer" was that it was okay to use Miracle Grow's Garden Soil. I told the employees that it says to use "in ground", and that this would be used for container growing. They insisted it would work. I ended up adding a peat mixture to make the soil a little less compact. Maybe that was what proved to be bad for the cukes because I had beautiful and plentiful green peppers and cherry tomatoes. Help and thanks!