I once had a hanging basket that had upwards of 30 or more blooms at once. This was in the days before digital cameras and I had no film in my old 35 mm. I had been watching the buds for days, and then one night about 10:30 I smelled the most delicious fragrance wafting in the bedroom window. It was blooming! Bob was asleep, the neighbor's lights were out so I had no one to share the magical event with. As Jim says all were gone by early morning. But I'll never forget it! People often thought it was a stag horn fern as it hung from low branches of a pecan tree by the pool. It was a huge and heavy thing and I'd lug it in the family room for the winter. One winter I didn't take it down in time to save it from freezing. :-( Oh well, beauty like fame is sometimes very fleeting, but I'm thankful for the memory.

The ususal destressors, (wine, chocolate, coffee) I can't eat due to health reasons. I have bladder problems if I do. So yesterday it was a ton of almonds and dark chocolate m&ms. I guess the anti-inflammatory compounds in the almonds negated the chocolate, or maybe it was the anti-oxidants in the chocolate? Polished that off with TWO cans of root beer, which is the ONE soda I can drink. The other destressors include cheese and crackers, peanut butter and jelly, and yes, nachos of one sort or another. If I had more sweets around I would go to them, but since I don't, I have to make do with what I have, which is carbs! Tonight it may be two chocolate donuts on the way to class. I am so danged stressed! First it ruins my appetite, then I get ravenous for bad foods. I know I should fight it, but frankly I don't know if that's possible. Healthy foods usually appeal to me a lot, but not when I'm stressed.

I think we're all jumping the gun here and skittish because of the change we just went through - we knew it was coming but they pulled the rug without giving us a date. Seems they were doing some maintenance the other night and nothing more but I think setting up a meeting place on the Houzz forums is a great idea in the unlikely event that our GW side disappears one day - I think we're safe to assume the Houzz side would remain. Whoever sees it first can go over to the What Are You Working On forum and send up a a signal flag - GW MEMBERS HERE or something!!! daisychain - our group did have a long advance warning with a specific date when all MSN groups would be shut down. Our group managers had the ability to email en masse and we did that multiple times to hopefully catch everyone. That gave us time to research other options, but as I said, after 2 other host changes we are on facebook now. I'm sure there are some members who lost us along the way with the changes and others who won't join us because it's now on fb, but that's life - there is an ebb and flow to these groups that would happen anyway.

Laura....Freedom's Triumph is a very healthy, vigorous plant and produces lots of scapes and buds reliably each year....no winter issues. The only complaint I have is sometimes the blooms are a little splotchy but not often. Debra....yes, it IS very deep and dark purple here. I find that both purple roses and daylilies are a more intense, darker purple in my soil than other places I've seen. Thank you for your comments everyone.