Good morning.... Delightful to see photos of Miss Mae and company this morning! Everyone is looking so happy! All that waiting rewarded. Really nice to see the light in the eyes and the beaming smiles after the year that you all have had. The little one is so serious! lol Reminds me of our DD when she was born who had a serious look on her face in many photos. She looks like she is deep in thought. Look forward to hearing about your homecoming when you are rested Gardenbug. :-) Julie...glad to hear you are getting busy with the garden. Sounds like you are going to have a great vegetable garden this year. Sorry to hear DD has knotweed to deal with. I guess I will think of that next time I am complaining about the minor weeds in my garden. Mary, what cuties! lol Very enjoyable story about Betty and Henny. My favorite is the amber colored one. .... Congrats to Annie on having her braces removed. I bet she is gorgeous! Marian...your Tommy is just so funny. I can just imagine the conversation he had with you. I wonder where cats have developed this dislike of water? The big cats in the wild have to put up with rain and I've seen some photos of tigers swimming. [g] A fox sighting! No chance of me seeing any of those in my semi-urban location. Lucky you! Saucy...that was the name of the book I was trying to come up with! No, I haven't read it. I have seen the title at the library and left it on the shelf thinking I might have to face the reality of how much my home grown vegetable crops actually cost me. I prefer fantasy over reality much of the time. lol You're having a vegetable garden this year, aren't you? ..... I discovered a patch of Poison Ivy the other day too. I thought we got rid of it last year. I continue to try to get rid of a weedy Campanula that is in the garden too and it just keeps coming back. .... We can't work fast enough here either. I was out looking around yesterday and I'm falling behind. .... Congrats on another new swarm of bees! I think you are really good at this bee keeping thing. :-) Woody...I was just checking the brick edge around our sitting area and it is disappearing under the grass. I have tried to cut corners I guess and in the end my efforts have been wasted. So you can consider that as you work hard installing your edging right. :-) Kathy...I love that Penstemon. I bought a similar one last year called 'Pike's Peak Purple'. It is coming up looking fine and can't wait to see it bloom. Your blue is so pretty, I will have to look for that one too. As far as I'm concerned, you don't have to ration the photos you post. I love to see some every time you post. I'm in a lull in our garden right now and not caught up with mulching and cleaning so photos are in short supply. When you have as successful a garden season as you are having, it would be such a waste not to take a gazillion photos!! .... Oh, and so sorry to hear about Dodger's disappointing news about Manny. I am hoping that the rest of the team can rise to the occasion. It would serve Manny right, for them to get along fine without him! Woody and Kathy....I have the same kind of soaker hoses. Sears from recycled tires, I think. Plus the quick connect on all my hoses. What did we do before those were invented!? It sounds like you both are doing about what I have been doing with mine. I leave mine on for hours though Kathy in the heat of summer. Could I really get away with less? It never looks like they are getting enough water. I wish I could fill 100ft at a time Woody, that would cut my efforts in half. Chelone...Hurry it up willya! I'm waiting for work on the curtains to begin, so the tables have to get finished tout de suite! Gee, if 12 hour days would just stop interfering. :-) Ok...I need to cut this short too. I'm missing the FB defectors too. :-) Drema...very sorry to hear about dreaded deer in the garden and a woodchuck too? Horrible! Looking for a visit from Sue with news of how the renovating is going. Will check back later I'm sure... pm2 'Avalanche' Lilac, chose a rainy day to open and I took a photo between drops....

Hi Everyone! Rose, my guess is 13 for the planter contest. My box arrived from Vina today, and it was very, very nice! Loved the butterfly stickers on the box! Vina sent me: Blue Mouse Ears, a mini hosta, YEA!, which is already planted in between the tiarellas; A Columbine William Guiness, very pretty, and already planted; A pink Obedient plant, an Agastache Honeybee Blue and a Rudbeckia Herbstonne, all of which have been potted up awaiting decisions on where to put them! Also received a beautiful, orange daylily called Kwanza! Vina, thank you so much for sharing these plants with me, I am very pleased! Well, I have to have Willie, the cat, at the Vet's at 7:30 tomorrow morning, so I'd better start doing bedtime stuff! Talk to ya all later! Shirley!

Hotels, Hospitals, and Jails............Anthony Swofford

I'm so sorry, but it doesn't look like I will get to more plant part questions. Perhaps I can try it again one month when I am hostess again. Congratulations to Nicole who won our Gardener's Derby Game and to Emily who is clearly first in the Plant Parts Game. I'll get little prizes send out early in June. Thanks to everyone for posting comments, pictures, and participating! We continue to have storms off and on and the humidity these past few days has been horrid. I heard someone say it is so oppressive because of two air masses that came together - all I know is you can hardly stand to be outside. Meanwhile, I'm arranging more times to get roofers and other people out here to evaluate damage and schedule repairs. The roofers can return on Monday which is great. The back part of the roof hasn't been repaired yet and I started getting interior leaks which correspond with where they still need to do repairs. This tree episode has been a nightmare, but the services I dealt had some very nice people to deal with so that has been much appreciated. (However, I'm glad I called LOTS of them because here it is over 2 months later and I haven't even gotten a return call from some of the tree services. I know they are busy, but they need to leave a message or something about how backed up they are.) Here's a picture of my gladiolus that's in bloom today. My plants seem to have loved all the rain. Of course, we have very sandy soil so they don't stay waterlogged in it.