I have had both C. canescens and C. verticillata in a pot with lots of rocks, permatil, etc. My first C. verticillata died due to too much moisture...I did not have enough permatil in the pot, I think. A friend gave me cuttings, however, and one is growing in the amended soil mixture. I am also trying it in a very dry location out in the yard. The C. canescens is four years old now. At the NC Botanical Garden they have a lovely spread of Conradina. The plant appears NOT to be able to take soggy soils and is better suited to a rock garden or very dry locale. Oh, I don't think you are really supposed to eat it.

It was a wonderfull time and thank you everyone for coming! It was fairly hot ou in the sun but a bit cooler once you got under the trees. I now have more wonderful plants to add to the garden, both front and back. Believe it or not, this is the first time since the swap yesterday that I've had a chance to get on the computer and even now it's just a really quick stop. After everyone left yesterday I crashed and took a two hour nap, then I was up and out the door. Along with my dad, Destin, Beket, and her brother and mom, I went out to Chiles for dinner and then on to the movies to see Star Trek. That was a fantastic movie, both funny and action packed, without being hokey at all! Then this morning I went out shopping with both my parents and my three year old niece, Mariah. We just got back a few minutes ago. What a packed weekend! That cute little girl in the third picture is my one year old niece, Mylene. Isn't she adorable!? She is such an serious and independant little girl. Denise, that blue siding belongs to Mom's, Lynn, summer kitchen that my parents built when they remodeled the kitchen inside. Mom ended up cooking in the outdoor kitchen for about four months since we did all of the remodeling ourselves. Now the summer kitchen is a great place to have parties and get togethers. Marcia, that's funny that our bottle trees look so much alike. I got the idea for mine out of a gardening magazine years ago but they used rebar. I lucked out in that a couple years ago one of my neighbors was stripping out a grocery store that was closed and he ended up with a mountain of scrap copper piping in his back yard. I traded a sample brass big truck exhaust that I salvaged from the trash at work for a dozen copper pipes. Now those pipes are very nicely aged. I agree that this is probably the last swap for me as well untill the cooler weather in the fall. The hot sun is just a bit to much for my pale skin, even with sun screen and my big hats! By the way, who brought the brocoli slaw to the swap? Mom really liked it and would like to get the recipe. Kara

I've seen too much damage caused by homemade plant food and homemade disease treatments to be able to recommend anything. Compost is great but you should let it biodegrade a bit before using it. Hot compost can damage plants, but you don't have to wait until it's completely finished to use it. With experience, you'll get the hang of knowing when compost is ready to be used. It is probably the single best thing you can do for the soil, but it is a gradual and ongoing process. If your soil previously contained a thriving community of weeds, you probably have all the important nutrients required. Most plants don't need much in the way of nutrients when you first plant them; they will spend the first couple of weeks or so getting situated in their new home. If they don't start growing right away, don't think it is due to the soil or a lack of nutrients. They need to get established. Some plants will get acclimated faster than others, but it's not necessarily a sign that you need to add fertilizer. The best thing to do - when you can afford to do so -- is to get a comprehensive soil test. Most folks live near Cooperative Extension offices or universities that do that sort of thing. It isn't free (here they are around $25 or $30, depending on the number of things you want tested) and it can take a few weeks to get the results, but it will remove the guesswork as to what's needed, if anything. Worst-case scenario: get an inexpensive, all purpose, water soluble fertilizer, such as MiracleGro, Peter's, or any other brand you like and keep it handy just in case you need it. A small package can be had for $12 or less, will keep for a long times as long as the contents don't get wet, and these fertilizers contain all the macro and micro nutrients that plants need. This would be almost impossible to duplicate on your own. You're off to a good start. You may not necessarily need fertilizer, at least not at first. Scratch in some compost as it becomes available. When you have the funds get a good soil test from professionals (lots of the kits you can buy at the garden center are notoriously inaccurate). If you can borrow one of those little Mantis tillers, electric or gas, they are great at busting up soil and loosening the rocks.

I don't know why Witherspoon first concluded that making holes for fertilizer was a good idea. I don't know if some of their gardens had these and some didn't. They do teach classes in how to feed plants and they teach using this unusual method. Their phone number is online if you want to talk to them about it. I wrote to the Jobe's plant food spike company also to ask how they test their products. I haven't heard from them. Does anyone know if fresh horse manure is ok? One rose expert says the fresher the better. I think horse is very different than cow. Some people advise throwing banana peels on the ground around roses. Seems to me that any benefit would be located in a small area below the peel, kind of like the spikes or holes full of food would be in a small area. Maybe over time with enough peels thrown out there the general area would be improved. My MIL was a good vegetable gardener and she buried kitchen vegetable waste and rotated the rows the next year. Did not compost the stuff in a pile, just buried it. Deeper soil improvement worked with her vegetables. Hard to believe roses have shallower roots than vegetables. I have seen shallow rose roots snaking out just below the grass, but have also seen plenty of deeper roots that are memorably hard to get out. I don't remember the quantity of feeder roots on them. Could be that they have fewer feeder roots as food and oxygen get less deeper in the soil. I think some deep feeder injection gadgets that use liquid food claim that the plant will produce deeper roots if fed more deeply, and so that plant would be more drought tolerant. Could be just another claim. I know that rosarians are advised to water deeply, not shallowly. If the functioning roots were all on the surface, we'd be advised to water shallowly I think. But if something doesn't work in one garden it is not certain it would not work in another. So it can be tempting and/ or interesting to try something iffy.