Hi, Kim and Phoebe...thanks for your kind comments. Kim, the coleus is "Orange King," and I got it at Lukas. It has stayed full and fairly low...about 18" tall maybe. (I have other coleus I grow get over 3' tall and wide, but some are lower growing). This one is good for the front of the bed, and is in full sun and doing well. I've never seen it before, and hope to find it again next year. I'm going to try to make cuttings, too, though I lost 75 of those last winter. Phoebe, I had one or two things that froze to the ground but came back again (like my tibouchina, which will be another whole year before it gets as big as it was), but most things froze to the ground and died. Like my jatropha. The roots were MUSH after the freeze, and it was well established, about 4' tall and wide, with a full canopy. We were in a pocket where the cold was severe for four straight nights. Very little survived that many nights of 26 to 28 degree weather for hours on end. *sigh* But I learned a lesson. My perennials and shrubs are now cold hardy varieties which should fare better. I don't mind replacing the annuals or tender perennials, but I need SOME things to come through okay. Glad you didn't lose anything. We were hauling dead plants to the curb for a month, 5 or 6 barrels full at a time. Marcia

Remember what I was just saying yesterday???? Crazy. Well, I had a question early on today, so googled the subject followed by okie dawn. My memory is shot! What was it! Well the main point was that a GW post by okie dawn popped up, and I read her long discussion on it--oh I know--it was on easiest vegetables to grow. But then when I checked in on FB, there, front and center, was the notice that today is her birthday. And so I shed tears. How lucky were all of us who benefitted from her kindness and knowledge. I am so thankful for finding her--and all of you. Oh my gosh. . . as I was thinking of her yesterday and today. . .worked so hard in the house AND in the yard. I wanted the deck and yard to look nice for the trail of people who were going to be passing through tomorrow. Getting the lawn mowed proved to be quite the challenge since it has been rainy all week. Since it runs off our yard except toward the back corners, I found a 3-hr window of slightly windy and no rain yesterday and slammed out the enormous ex-driveway and immediate back yard. GDW took pity and asked if I wanted some help in the immediate, and I said, "PLEASE!" I hardly ever accept his help. But was grateful for it yesterday. Then, we had another break of about 3 hours today! And I told him I thought I could slam out the small front yard. Meanwhile, he was weed-eating. I was thinking about Dawn then, too. She never gave a clue that she was in pain or having trouble. But she HAD to be, I would think. And so thinking about that enabled me to get a lot of work done today. Cleaning bathrooms, finishing cleaning on the deck, vacuuming part of the living room, cleaning out the fridge, mowing the front lawn, doing a couple loads of wash. Then a note from our friends at the marina saying they were going to cancel the poker run tomorrow and move it to June 5. I laughed SOOOOOOO hard! Perfect! Got all our deck and house stuff caught up. We get to clean again a bit the week before June 5, but meanwhile, we get to enjoy how spiffy the deck looks. I have a lot of containers and a lot of BIG containers outside--something like a dozen or so. None are native plants. Several are ornamental peppers and/or lettuce/kale/chard. But though I'd like to have a professional container planter person come do these for me, still doesn't look too bad.. Just got a several more sweet potato slips from SESE that I'll have to get to the school tomorrow (except it's supposed to rain all day), or maybe Sunday. Still have a FEW peppers to plant somewhere. I guess here and at school. Well, love to you all. Later.

Marie Tulin. The past is blurry, but I think the cup Plant seed hitchhiked in a batch of Rudbeckia seeds, Rudbeckia submentosa var. deamii, or something similar sounding. For a long time I thought I was nursing a vigorous Rudbeckia, but at some point I realized something was terribly wrong and it was a silphium. Rudbeckia laciniata is another monster plant, but I thought that I was cultivating something akin to Rudbeckia fulgida. I felt like I wasn't ready to take on something so large, but I kept it anyway, and I'm glad I did. It seems to have expanded even more this year and is nudging up to a couple of other perennials. It's fun to watch pollinators drink from the cups, and birds using them to bathe. They can get damaged by high winds in the garden. In the prairie they are more protected, by nearby plants. This year I'm adding the rest of the Silphium species native to my area, compass plant, prairie dock, and rosinweed. People grow elephant ears and castor beans so these are in that same category of big and bold. I do nurture some weeds until they get big enough to ID. Maybe this Silphium looks congested because it's growing up against a building in what looks like a narrow strip? That's cruelty to plants, to have something that majestic crammed into a confined space.

Rudbeckia triloba has a lot of variability in the ray petal lengths. I think that is the reason the petals happen to be longer on this plant. Not a hybrid or a mutation. You can measure the ray petals and if they are longer than 30mm,then we can explore whether or not it's a hybrid. The characteristics of this plant are completely triloba, and no characters of Rudbeckia hirta are showing anywhere, except the petal length which is similar and a coincidence. Rudbeckia triloba I have a triloba plant that's 2' and blooming, and another triloba that's 8" and blooming. Depending on conditions they can typically be all different heights. Helianthus divaricatus has yellow-orange disk flowers, and not brown 'eyes'. So this chance variation doesn't happen often, so maybe 1 out of every 500 plants has it, or even less. It's like having three kids and one of them a whole head taller then the other 2, same deal.