Forgive me if I am mistaken but there seems to be something very wrong with that plant. Basically the whole thing appears to be upside down and stuck on a stem with no realistic connection. Is your friend trying to fool us or is this a real but very mutant flower? If this is a serious id question we need better pictures. And if it is a real plant it would be good to know where it is growing and under what conditions.

Wow, I never thought about my hosta being improved by the wild birds coming to my garden. Naturally, I feed the birds, and place bird baths and water bowls on the ground as well, for the turtles. One thing you may think about doing at your retirement community is having it certified as a wildlife habitat. Or , choose to go the route of a Bird Friendly Habitat. You get the signs after filling out the check list of what qualifies you, and then you pay something like $35 to get the sign....from the National Wildlife Federation. My small garden is certified for both Wildlife and Bird Friendly. The biggest stumbling block for my qualification was a pile of brush. That is what gives cover for the rabbits and other more timid wildlife. But we used the neighbor's brush pile just on the other side of the fence, and she leaves it there permanently. Screened from view by our jasmine climbing the fence, and with vines crawling all over it, you'd never know it was there. May I suggest for your Hosta Island, a water basin sitting on the ground, which a turtle could get access to? Last summer, during the droughty dry times, they were dying of thirst. And a high birdbath is not accessible to them. The one visiting my garden tried to suck moisture from a brick and the wet dirt. S/he never ate a hosta. They do eat garden pests....and tomatos and strawberries, but not enough to hurt.

Chris, Your relationship with your SD is a reflection of your relationship with your wife. Your SD issues are secondary issues. Your primary issues are with your wife. When you say you love your wife, what specifically do you find so lovable about her? Is there something there that's got you hooked & or stuck? It would serve you well to discover what's keeping you hooked & or stuck in a marriage that's no good for you. What's so lovable about a wife who allows for her husband to be mistreated, manipulated, disrespected and USED? What's so lovable about a woman who does not take personal parental responsibility for raising her own child to play by the rules of civil society & instead enables & fosters her child's character deficiency? How lovable is that? Marriage is 100% give & 0% take. But your GIVING 200% & your wife is TAKING 200%! I regret to say you are in a BAD NEWS marriage. There's nothing but heartbreak for you in this marriage. Unless your a masochist then why would you stay? Do you feel like your dying inside of you or like your being murdered from inside of you? If that's how you feel, then you've been reeled in by a Grade A Narcissist. She may play the 'helpless' feminine but you can rest assured she knows exactly what she's doing. Your buttons are being pushed. Your being played by a Master! I feel for you because I've been there & now again 2nd marriage around I'm back there. It's not easy to get out of a Narcissist's clutches. Sociopaths murder Truth, Psychopaths murder People, Narcissists murder Souls. aka Antisocial Personality Disorders These are the three severest & most dangerous personality disorders known to medical science. There's no therapy, no medicine & no cure for it. There are four outcomes for those of us who are the Victims of those who have Antisocial Personalities: the Lunatic Asylum, Prison, the Morgue or the most well formed outcome - RUN & DON"T STOPPING RUNNING UNTIL THERE"S NO WAY WE CAN EVER BE NEAR THEM AGAIN!

Coincidence explains a great deal of what you are seeing. That and the fact that given the lousy weather many have experienced this year there are lots of "horrible" tomatoes growing. You are far from being alone with tomato problems this year if that is any comfort to you. But those problems are weather related, not soil location related for the most part. So what specifically is wrong with your plants. Like Dan, I too have grown tomatoes in the same fields for more than 40 years with no problems. Regular crop rotation is more of a commercial grower thing and something most home gardeners just can't do. Volunteers sometimes appear more robust simply because of their mutated genetics (assuming they were hybrids) and because they often develop later then those we transplant. But despite their appearance they often don't produce or don't produce edible fruit so it is a trade off. Dave