Yup, that's where I got my First Choice plants from! I'm in zone 5, though, not 6. In fact, my primary growing field has a zone 4 microclimate, due to a cold-sink problem, but the caryopteris is in a warmer, more sheltered area. I tend not to mulch anything because our long, cold, wet, dramatic-temperature-swing springs and autumns tend to cause anything that is mulched to rot, especially plants that prefer dryish conditions - like caryopteris, for instance. I didn't go for Dark Knight because the only description I could find made it sound more purple than blue. I already have all the purple I can stand. Do you know what color it really is? Jeanne

Thanks Dave. I know the Glaciers are done for - I've been throwing away more lately than harvesting (I said I had about 1-2 lbs perfect, and a few more with just some black specks). I think over the course of the season now I've thrown away more than I've harvested. Glad to know that the black specks are considered diseased and not good for canning (though we will eat the remaining ones on the counter fresh as long as they'll last). I wasn't sure about the "dead vines" line since when I picked them last week the branches they were on were not dead. So the "dead vines" means that if any part of the plant dies an untimely death, don't use *any* of the tomatoes for canning? What about the cracking BW? Still OK to eat the bottoms (not canned)? I don't know what that rot is on the small one I found yesterday - first time I've seen that. Won't be many green tomatoes, except for BW's. I understand these will be OK to slice and pickle? All these plants are going in the trash, not the compost. I also should have been carrying a bucket to put the rejects in instead of throwing them over the fence - going to have to clean up the area. But I have been putting the split ones and the ones that started getting sunken rotten spots on my counter (even though they looked fine when I picked them) in the compost - have I just ruined next year's compost? The last time I canned anything from these plants was some hot sauce on 9/4 (and the only other thing was jam on 8/27, haven't canned anything else), and the plants looked much better then having survived the hurricane with just some minor damage, though might have been some spots (I thought Septoria) on some of the leaves at that time, no spots on the tomatoes, is that sauce likely to be OK? Will I be able to tell if it's going bad? Or is there potential for botulism due to the tomatoes being less acidic than usual b/c plants were already infected? I think they started going downhill after the hurricane 8/27 with 10+ inches of rain and then the 5 inches that followed on the 5th-8th of Sept so I can't really remember exactly how the plants looked before the 4th (I was using tomatoes picked in between those 2 rain events). Your expertise is very much appreciated.

For whatever reason, you now have these scions and you have too many rootstocks for the number of scions. To best utilize them all I would consider doing chip buds this spring. That way you would use one bud per graft. Chipping is not my favorite graft, nor the most elegant, but it is simple, works well with a range of sizes, can be done from spring through middle/late summer, and has a very good chance of succeeding even if the grafter is relatively unskilled. My fingers are getting stiff and clumsy so that matters to me. Chips seem to have a "stuck-on" appearance after they take (as if they somehow perched themselves on top of the wood), but in time they look better and I've never had a problem with them splitting off or otherwise showing weakness. And boy, they're quick. They're even quicker to do than regular budding. Here's one link that describes it well: http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2730&context=extensionhist And here's Kuffel Creek Nursery's Youtube vdo on it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b01Wu0h9-Jc Just possibilities. Good luck!

but the plant is currently outside, where he wants to keep it until the mealybug situation is resolved. putting that bayer stuff on the plant while outside is part of the problem. thankfully, he seems to want to avoid doing that. i don't know if that 30 day estimation is correct. some of those products last 12 months, according to the label on the actual bayer package label AND the product name. 30 days or not, the plant still might have to come inside to avoid exposing pollinators to that rough insecticide - and that may be before the bugs and their eggs, are dead. i say repot and THOROUGHLY clean. he'd probably need to cut some of the plant as well.