Knock Out is a series of roses, Ryan... there are reds, pinks, rainbow, yellow, doubles... they're considered landscaping or ground cover roses. They're very cold hardy, self-cleaning, low and mound shaped, and they're incredibly easy to care for. I just lightly tip prune in early spring, just to remove any dead wood, and that's about it. The only thing I'm not thrilled with is that the flowers are more single than double, in petal numbers. I prefer a fuller rose. But I would recommend them to anyone not familiar with roses, who wanted to try growing some. They're very reliable! They even smell nice! And because of their size and ease of growing, they make wonderful additions to any garden or landscaping! Wait until you see the next set of rose and allium pictures! We have some real beauties in bloom now! I've got the batteries charging for the camera, so I'll probably try to get some pictures tomorrow... or today, I should say... it's almost morning! Thanks once again for all the nice compliments! I appreciate it! It also looks like there's a new scape growing on the Swan Lake White garden amaryllis! For smaller bulbs, they're proving to be more prolific than I expected... so that's nice. Happy Gardening, everyone!

Me too - - no rain for two weeks now and not much before that. They said a shower would come last night but NOOOOOOOOOO, it did not. And there is nothing on the radar this week either. I am almost ready to bite the bullet and use money saved for less pressing things (you know, kids college and such - smile) to install drip irrigation! I sent a link to Donn's recent post containing information and suppliers to my husband - HINTHINTHINT--- but haven't heard a word of enthusiasm. The beds are far appart (over a dozen of them front and back) and after taking on burying hose a few years ago just to make some facuets to connect hose/sprinklers to, I don't think he is up for it. We are "babysitting" a neighbors yard this week while they are on vacation and they have a drip system in their beds. I am going to use the opportunity to really study how it is set up and maybe I can do it myself! Once it cools off that is.....it is just too disgustingly humid to move today. Nancy

Lisa, Well, even though it didn't overflow it sounds like you had good rain. It might be overflowing by the time the high pressure builds back in next week and the rain drops off. Leslie, I don't blame you. I wouldn't have been doing any gardening in your part of the state in the hot summer months either. We had a much better year in Love County this year than last year. In 2011, we'd had just under 12" of rain by the end of August, and ended the year with a little over 23". However, our average rainfall is almost 39" a year, so we were still far below average. In 2012, we had almost 24" by the end of August so it was a much better year. However, last year we started getting lots of rain in September, and this year our September rainfall has been skimpy. While many others in OK are seeing improvement in their drought conditions, our drought is now deepening in our county. That's not much a person can do except wait it out Mia, Plants often behave strangely coming out of drought-induced dormancy. One of our plum trees dropped all its leaves about a month ago and now is blooming. It happens almost every year that we have drought that is rated as 'Moderate Drought' or worse. Last year as soon as rain fell and we had cooler temperatures, the cool-season grasses and wildflowers (and weeds) germinated in huge numbers about 2 months earlier than usual. Jay, I'm starting to wonder if you'll ever see average rainfall amounts again. This drought reminds me that your general geographic area was known, long-ago, as "no man's land", and for good reason. How in the world could pioneers in your area raise enough food to sustain themselves on the kind of low rainfall totals y'all see there? Heather, That is not going to be fun. One ofmy memories of my grandfather is of him walking around his sandy yard removing those stickers so they wouldn't fall to the ground and give him even more of those evil plants the next year. It seemed like an endless battle. Y'all, the rain since Wed. morning has missed us, and this week we are instead seeing a big increase in fires, despite that nice rain shower we had Wed. morning. Yesterday we had a pretty bad wildfire east of town that required about 8 or 9 departments and several hours to contain it and put it out. Then our pagers went off in the middle of the night.....this is a trend I am not liking one bit. I can water the garden enough to keep everything growing now that the temperatures have finally cooled off a little, but we cannot do anything about the thousands of acres of cedar tree-infested bone-dry grassland that surround us. In case y'all have been too busy playing in the rain (grin) to notice, the Governor lifted the burn ban for another 22 counties. The current burn ban map is below. Meanwhile, some of the Texas counties across the river from us who lifted the county burn ban 1, 2 or 3 weeks ago now have put them back in place. Apparently the conditions remained drier than they thought and a resurgence in fires caused them to reinstate burn bans. Likewise, the commissioners in a few OK counties have implemented a county burn ban after the Governor's Burn Ban for their area was lifted. Apparently they looked at their conditions and felt like they wanted to keep a burn ban in place a little bit longer. Carol, Other than the peppers, was most of the garden okay after the hail storm? How's the Seminole pumpkins doing? Larry, I always wait and wait and wait for rain and when it doesn't fall, I finally break down and water the garden. Then, out of the blue, rain will fall. It drives me crazy. There's an area behind the garage where I've long wanted to break up the ground and amend it and have additional garden space. The problem is that it is such dense clay that even the big rear-tine tiller just bounces off the ground when the ground is dry, and it is hard to hit it at the right time after a heavy rainfall. It seems like it stays too wet to till until, suddenly and seemingly overnight, it is then too dry to till. I don't think I'd ever be able to grow root crops in it because, like your sweet potato area, it likely would be hard to dig in summer or fall, but I think it could be a good area for corn or, if well-amended, for winter squash. The soil in the big garden is already fairly dry even though we had good rainfall on Wednesday. The dry ground just sucks up the water like a sponge. Dawn Here is a link that might be useful: Current Burn Ban Map

I always mix kaolin clay with water and spray it on. That way it sticks real good. I'm afraid if you just throw it, it may just blow away. But it does turn everything a ghostly white. I don't know anything that really controls grasshoppers. I wish some creature ate them all up. Surely they must have some nutritional value. Maybe you can catch them and throw them into a pond somewhere filled with piranas.