I just checked again after watering this morning, and sure enough there is a gopher in the basket, because he closed up the hole with dirt. so I guess, I should dig the whole thing out? Maybe I will bring my cats to see, in case I pull out a gopher? Hopefully they will learn to hunt them better than they do. I try to teach them that birds are friends but gophers are good for hunting, being our rivals in the garden.

Umm, no. You posted this Friday, April 9, at 12:00 So dh spent about 4 hours yesterday morning putting up wood stakes around each tree and took gigantic, thick, black contractor trash bags and placed them over the stakes so they didnt come into contact with the trees. So the trees were covered Thursday morning. The Weather Channel reports Thursday's weather in Cassadaga as: April 8 Actuals 72°F 42°F 0.42 in. It's not that I really want to make a big deal about this, but consider it a learning experience. I've spent a lot of time over the years trying to convince people that there are significant differences between roses and tomato plants. I've never before met anybody who seemed equally confused about the difference between a maple tree and a tomato plant :-) Basically, while pure water freezes at 32 °F, if you start putting stuff in the water, like salt or alcohol, the freezing point gets lower and lower. Hardy plants put various sugars in the water so they can stand below freezing temperatures. Snow isn't an issue unless it's so heavy that mechanical breakage becomes a problem. According to my car, it can snow any time the temperature is below 40°F. It can definitely snow at temperatures well above damaging cold. To put this in some perspective, I keep a bunch of roses in pots in the garage because they would not handle my winter temperatures outside. When they go out in the spring, they are usually about 2-3 weeks ahead of roses in the ground, and used to conditions considerably warmer. In other words, they are going from about zone 8 to zone 5. They handle freezing temperatures just fine, and I only bother bringing them back inside for forecast lows below about 27°F. That's to give some wiggle room in case it really goes below about 25°F. For something I expect to be fully hardy here, like a tree, I wouldn't start worrying unless it got noticably colder than that.

My ivy leafed small light blue morning glories bloomed first and got to about four foot tall. The Early morning, or tall mix got tallest at about ten foot and bloomed much later. Because they needed to be sown after frost I didn't see a lot of difference between my direct sown and winter sown. I didn't use the best soil though and my drainage was bad. This year I'm doing more and will be direct sowing for ease of planting out.

keesha I am figuring you are gonna love this story. remember the plight I was having with wanting to keep the morning glory tradition alive? well......it is definately alive... Here is a pic of how it almost completely covered my little arbor yesterday morning I was enjoying my morning coffee while looking out at my overgrown arbor yesterday afternoon I was standing at my window wondering what happened to my arbor....the morning glories totally weighted it down to the point where it broke and fell over...lol I went out and tried to pick it up and I couldn't cause it was too heavy! I just shake my head and say...look,Mom...I did this for you...lol I will still have them. Just next year I will have to be more vigilant at keeping them at bay..(or buy a much stronger arbor) lol