Beautiful sunflowers. All the pics are great! I too have volunteers this year. I'm sure I'm the only person who has a tough time thinning them out. Like I'm killing poor innocent sunflowers. The birds love them and I take bouquets of them to the nursing home not far from here. Beautiful dog too. I breed shelties but my next dog will be a plush shepherd. Keep the pics coming people. I love to be everywhere at once to enjoy the fruits of your labour! Virginia

Welcome to the best part of the world Fossilnut! We are over the hill from you on the big river side. We can't thank you enough. You are doing the right thing. All our children will benefit. The only things Mulees dont eat are tin cans, Thistles, Mullen and Napweed. And whatever the elk and the white tails get first. They come for your grass. The less you have the less they like you. Unless they are taking your water you can "steer" them next door by making sure their grass is easier and better. They are smart about food. You will have to plant all the floweres and see what likes your micro-climate, some of our flowers are really picky about where they grow. Just remember our flowers arent used to good soils and they like singing. The beautiful flowers we have are Arnica, Balsam [Arrowleaf], Fireweed, Salsify, Larkspur, Sunflower, Glaicer Lilly, Mariposa lilly, Shooting star [and about 10 other little Lillys], Astor, Death Camas, Yarrow, Fleabane, Spring Beauty, wild strawberry, Waterleaf, Phlox, Buttercup, Mustard, Scarlet Gilia, Sheep sorrel and Shepards purse. Almost all of them should grow at the lake. New guys are required to grow Camus, Wild rose, Indian paintbrush and Bitterroot to demonstrate community spirit. Of course we have a bunch more that don't flower and the birds love the Thistles and Mullen both. We have 7 and 8 foot Mullen 3 inches from our kitchen window so the birds sit at table top levle and eat and sing to us. Our - your new - state birds favorite plant is Thistle. The Wild Strawberry, Balsam, Phlox, Lupine, Yarrow and Fireweed seems to get ignored by most of the 4 footers. The Deer and Elk take the willow buds and ANYTHING else once the weather turns. You might think about putting out a salt lick and some feed for them away from your flowers if you have enough room. Yard dogs work on everything except carpetbaggers and revenuers. If you go across to HWY 25 and head south there are old fruit trees along the road you can collect seed from and there are the very best Huckelberrys in the world in all those little hills to your east. The Deer dont seem to like Wild Raspberry much if you like larger plants. We hope your yard gets full of colour and song. J.R.

Fri. September 8th I will have a casual meal and a glass of wine (or two) ready for Friday weary travelers. I have nothing planned for this night as I am not sure who and when people are arriving. Sat. 9th We will be leaving my home at 8:30 am to pickup the 9:00 am arrivals and continue to Polly Hill for our 10:00am Workshop. Please note that I will need one of our group to be a driver. 10:00am to 12:00pm ($24.00) is our workshop if the weather allows we will be doing a picnic lunch at Polly Hill. The lunch will come from the only place in the area it is a catering business and either Friday night you can look at the menu or Sat. prior to the workshop ($10-$12.00??). After a quick lunch at the Polly Hill picnic table there are three nurseries in the area and we will probably have one hour to kill at a nursery at one nursery there is a gentleman who I would consider a rare plant fantatic/collector who is new to the island I have told him about you all and he will let me know if he can talk to us about rare plant collecting and how he moved his collection. Of course there will be time to poke around and make some purchaseshmmm (too many $$). Sadly it is fall and all of the nurseries have relative slim pickens. Back to Polly Hill for our private tour I have told them how brilliant you all are. My guestamate is we will be leaving PH around 3:30 I would like to stop at another nursery, a daylily farm for another talk on not only daylilies but solar power, a glass place where we can watch visiting and local craftsmen blow and see some of the most amazing pieces I have ever seen. I am suggesting this only after having run in the other day to see if they could repair something of mine glass and crafts usually arent my thing but the pieces they had on display were like nothing I have ever seen before and of course with a price to match $33,000.00. There are also a few art galleries as well as Chilmark chocolates that (hard to believe I know) is even better than Ben & Bills. ( All of those suggestions are free unless you choose to purchase) These are a few things available to us on the way to Menemsha a small fishing village where if the weather permits I would like to do what is called "backdoor" which is going to the restaurant/fish markets backdoor and ordering dinner to go (which is usually a cracked lobster and fixings) (I dont recall the cost but I am guessing $20.00-$30.00?) But I am sure they have something for the non fish lover but to be honest I dont know what so you may want to order two sandwiches at lunch. We will then walk over to the beach plunk our tired fannies down and watch to sunset as we eat our lobster. Please keep in mind if you like wine, beer, what ever with your meal these are dry towns and you will need to have brought that with you in the am. Also keep in mind it will be chilly so bring many more layers than you think you should. It will be much better to have a pile of sweaters and jackets in to trunk of the car than shivering unhappy people far from the warmth of my home. Now if as they are forecasting it will be raining and miserable I will have a plan B which will include dinner at a restaurant unless the majority of us would rather pitch in to buy and prepare a meal at my house. I dont know how to keep everyone comfortable with the decisions other than majority rule so please come prepared to spend twice as much as you thought you would. After the sunsets I thought we would head back to down town Edgartown for ice cream, wine what ever and of course at this point some or all could just go back and collapse. Sunday September 10th Wake up and bike, walk, ride to a private garden designed by Christine Horiunchi a Cape Landscape architect who has won awards for this design. With coffee in hand lets talk about design and plants, what she chose, what you would have chosen. Continue down the road to a grass airport where we will stop for more coffee and breakfast while watching vintage planes take off and land. We will also be viewing one of the last great stretches of Sand plain with rare native wildflowers. For those who need to catch a noon boat that should have you on the road by 1:30pm it would be time to say goodbye. For those that can stay a bit longer we have other choices, When picking the brain of people from Polly Hill for what else to include in this weekend they all suggested we drive down the beach to chappy and visit the My Toi gardens, or head back to down town Edgartown to do a walking tour of town and check out village gardens as well as another nursery visit, or maybe? My feeling is that the late group probably wont want to depart any later than a 3:00pm boat which would have you on the road by 4:30pm. A number of things that we will be doing are dependant on weather so we may be making adjustments to any and all that I have suggested. Please if something is important to you speak up I would want to know that and will try my best. I look forward to meeting you all and dont hesitate to write or call. Let me know at your earliest when you expect to be arriving. kt

Creating your own mix is a lot of fun. I usually collect most of my seed, but still end up purchasing a few odds and ends that I can't grow or collect enough of. There is a wild variety of Lupine! I encourage you to buy and plant many. They do require a well-drained soil that is typically sandy in nature, but as long as it is well-drained you should be just fine. They spread prolifically by ejecting their seeds from the pods. In the future you will be able to collect the dark pods before they pop if you want to choose where you'd like them to go. Mixes do contain a lot of filler plants, so designing your own may be best. Make sure to include some type of grass though. Without grasses your project will turn into a weedy mess in years to come and you will just want to start over. I'd recommend little bluestem since it is pretty tidy and isn't too aggressive. Plus it's short so you'll be able to see your flowers. As for flower recommendations, you can purchase purple coneflower, black-eyed susan, and annual phlox for very little money. Yellow coneflower is also very inexpensive and simple to grow and maintain. I would highly recommend planting some Butterfly Milkweed seed though. "Butterflyweed" is a must in a wildflower garden and I'm sure that if you do a simple Google image search you'll agree. I recently planted another new prairie myself and you may find some inspiration in my project. Here is a link that might be useful: Improved Ecosystems