Everyone PLEASE keep posting pictures!!! I love them and get so many ideas. Keep this thread alive with photos!! Tracey, your petunias look like a Salmon or Pink Morn variety, and those colors within the plant are smashing together. I will order some of that seed, as I have been sticking with Chiffon Morn every year (also a great petunia). Patricia, thanks for posting the Lamium based containers,as I always forget about Lamium. I have a brand new 100 by 15 foot raised bed bordering our property that is shaded and I am deciding what all to use to trail over the railroad ties we used to build it up. We are quite lucky, got all those railroad ties, limestone screenings, and 3 loads of topsoil for FREE. It should have cost us thousands to do this. Lamium will be a great addition. I wish I could help everyone grow great regular old petunias. The problems I always find are: 1. Not planted in full sun 2. Not deadheading 3. Not watering regularly 4. Not planting enough together. Most people buy those petunias and just stick one here or there. This will NOT make an impact at all. You have to remember that petunias are kinda "vinelike", and need to intertwine with each other. You cannot expect one plant to do all the work, it will not happen!! Next year, plant your regular petunias about 6 inches apart, not all in a streight line side by side. Do them in rows 4 inches apart. Do several rows. Make each petunia planting a huge mound of them, not just one plant. Deadhead them every single day, at least once. Keep the @#$%& rabbits out of them as best you can. I find the biggest problem with annual Salvias is that they were never pinched when young. If you bring home your plant, pinch off the bloom, including the stem down the center of the plant. Fertilize regularly and within about 3 weeks, your Salvias will have branched out, all the way down the plant, and have several blooms that will keep coming all season long. If you dont pinch the center of the plant, it will just be one flower, with a few tiny flowers at the bottom (if you are lucky). Try doing this next year!! I understand what you are saying about the Salvia, I have made the same mistakes in the past, everything I hear about everything, been there, done that. And, plant several Salvias together, just as the petunias, with proper plant spacing. Spacing too far apart will not look nice. Just keep on trying!! And keep taking pictures!!

Oh you poor darling! How do you control yourself? I would be a screaming banshee if i had done all that work to have it all dragged out to cook in the yard. You must be a saint or something! LOL :-)---Im glad you like the sock idea. I have two dogs and both get the sock method. My oldest is a three year old Shepard mix we adopted from a shelter, her name is Mary. She will practically bring the sock to me and she always wants to go first because they get many many goodies afterward. Bribes always work :-)----Then Tigger is our little black and white boy mini schnauzer and he used to eat us up when we first got him. He just turned one in may. He did not trust us at first and if we touched him or tried to hold him he would bite us! Thank God thats over with and he is our little Velcro dogie now. Always hanging on somebody wanting to be petted. He still gets upset about getting his nails clipped but he wants the treats soooooo bad, so he is much nicer and no biting anymore just growling but thank goodness for the sock. I use an old stretched out one that the elastic is soft so as not to hurt our babies just paralyze them. HaHa Then with Mary i drape a small blankie or towel over her legs so as not to kick my eyes out because i trim them on their backs. It takes about five minutes per dog and then we have a big treat party about three treats per dog and everybody gets a new rawhide chewy afterward to go take their anxiety out on. And i keep my skin and eyes intact :) The only problem i have with Tigger now is when we go out for a potty break he tries to catch baby birds and he bite a baby robin this year and killed it. I cried. I had no idea the little bird was even in there but he knew right away and just grabbed it and shook it. It was over in an instant. I put a muzzle on him now when we go out because i dont want that to happen again. Glad Daisy doesn't hurt them thats really good just gives them a slobber bath :-) Sorry i talked your head off, I better go---------bonnie

Outsmarting the tree rats (squirrels) around my house is a full time job. This past spring I hit on a new idea. When I plant a container I invert an empty wire hanging basket over the container and the plant gets sun and can be watered but the squirrels can't dig in it. Another idea: I bring in a lot of plants to "over winter" under lights in my garage. I have so many that it is hard to reach my hand under the lights (4 shop lights) to the middle for watering. So I bought a pump sprayer with a long wand and it works great! In late winter I add a little liquid Dawn detergent, few drops, to each gallon of water and not only does the soil get wet easier but the worms that are waiting to hatch into distructive pets just don't hatch. Don't know what it costs me to run those four shop lights all winter but I don't care. It is a small price to pay to be able to "garden" every weekend in the garage. Many people have mentioned that they mark their outdoor plants with a "permanent Sharpie". In my experience there isn't a "permanent Sharpie", they all fade and quickly too. A grease pencil/china marker or expensive "no fade" garden center marker are the only markers I have found that won't disappoint you by fading. Eight years ago I decided to learn about gardening so I tapped into my local library. I checked out nearly every book they had on gardening and learned so much. The Gardenweb forums are also a wealth of information and entertainment. There is always something new to learn and I appreciate all of you who take the time to write in your ideas. One last idea from me...I keep a small notebook on my computer table and jot down any idea I find that's new and I will want to try. Little pieces of paper get lost but I always know where my notebook is and also use it when I order "on line" so I will remember the name of the company and the order date. Tina or Trowelgal

Hi Rachel, all made sense to me! Wouldn't delphiniums be lovely. Yes absolutely its the sheer range of perennials and flowering shrubs, bulbs available to gardeners in temperate regions that's so astounding, that make gardening easy, interesting and creative. They have short growing seasons though, but spring summer and autumn are all absolutely wow seasons. I'm in Hong Kong, gardening up in the dense forested hills over looking the South China sea. Zone wise I think it's just beyond Miami towards the Keys. On occasion I get a few things from Florida, like palms and orchids that I haven't been able to find anywhere else. I suppose other people find it maddening they can't grow all our lovely things too. For me I realise "gardening" has taken a back seat unfortunately as I've found collecting plants just to test them against our climate has taken up so much of my life. So less gardening and more plantsmen. Opening frontiers. I just found it so frustrating that I couldn't design with the same almost inexhaustible palette as before. Agapanathus for example, any kind or species won't grow here, just too much rain rain rain in summer, they rot even if planted on little mounds and are from summer rainfall regions. Evergreen, perennials none will do, last one or two seasons at the most then gone. It took me a good number of years just to collect all the various species in contention and test them.........the way things proceed. Before when I had an idea, creative flow I just did it. Magic wand, a winding bed of blue agapanthus into the distance. No more. It does make you search for alternatives though. I love Hostas, didn't even try them I just know they won't do but discovered Proiphys amboinensis which is even nicer........ It's exciting to discover things that do very well of course. This year I've been concentrating on Aglaonemas, Tibouchinas especially T granulousa, Azaleas, Salvias like S guarantica Black and Blue etc, Gingers, Largerstroemia........a whole range of lovely summer flowering Asters in fantastic colours that seem to love being wet humid and steamy and come back and back, found these in Bangkok. A few aloes even do well. Hardly any succulents do, but those that grow in seasonal (summer) damp places in the wild in Africa are thriving for me, A. ecklonis, A. cooperi......one from Uganda not even sure what it's called. They also flower so well, twenty stems to a clump If we didn't push the boat our gardens would end up looking like the municiple plantings all around us which become very repetitive. Winter is a fun time because we can indulge our fantasies.......all temperate perennials are treated as annuals for me they just don't get through our summer. Some are more worthy than others and yes Canterbury bells do very well as annuals if you can get the right plants at the right time........we need retailers to think out the box too, right. Retailers here are selling Hollyhocks in full flower and bud right now. It does make me laugh and cry same time. They would be fine in winter but all the trouble and expense of importing them to die an instant death is just completely ga-ga. Already after two days the flowers are drooping in the humidity, they won't last four days even in the shop. They look so lovely and exotic too which those huge frilly flowers and saturated colours. I must say when I first moved here I was burnt a good number of times. I assumed retailers new more than I did. In some cases it's just as well they don't as then I am able to secure the odd gem that makes a fantastic winter annual. Could be a sign of madness but I still keep getting burnt. For me also a language thing. Yesterday I snapped up a Spiraea 'gold fountain'. I wasn't thinking but the intense Spring chartreuse colour and flickering fern like leaves ..........who could resist. Even if by some miracle it survives this summer our winters are not cold enough to initiate flowering. That snow white fountain of May will never be, sigh. One for the compost bin. {Whisper} Jasmine officinale 'Fiona Sunrise' is a real surprise! It hasn't flowered (think the night temps are too high) but it grows brilliantly sending up gorgeously ferny chartreuse tendrils every year, far more interesting and delicate than the rampant potato vine! I told my Mum about it and she shrieked "burn it"! Where she is it's a real nuisance taking over everything in sight, for me its a charming little hanging addition to pots and planters. Im in awe that it survives our summers, looking so fresh and lovely, like Spring everyday. Good luck.