Thanks for the reminder, Wendey. I must confess I anticipate being out on the patio come early spring like I was this past fall when planting and potting up bulbs with all the bags, bulbs, containers, mixes, tools and instructions all around me...checking and rechecking the heights, spacing, coordinating bloom times and colors. You'd think I was painting the Mona Lisa! If there's one thing I don't want it's lots of leggy greens and little to no bloom. I appreciate foliage as much as the next person but I want BLOOMS on those little guys. I'm wintersowing coleus for foliage accents. I also have to be careful because the ProMix I bought has some slow release fertilizer (says macro & micro nutrients) in it so I'll have to be very judicious when I plant out. The places where I would usually buy the mix were sold out by the time I went to buy around Thanksgiving and I panicked and had a bale delivered. Yes, I'm a little crazy. It's even got Biofungicide since I got obsessed with references to "damping off" which I now realize is really more of a concern with indoor germinating. So I over did things all the way around and your cautionary reminder is exactly what I need...LOL. I had gotten the bonemeal and green sand because I saw P. Allen Smith's garden show and he uses them for container mixes. That was way back last summer when I got the bright idea to try and grow "just a few things" in a few containers and then found Wintersown.org which led me to the GardenWeb and the rest is history... After I used some bonemeal among other things to amend a patch of ground I started to worry when I read bonemeal attracts critters to your bulbs. Dontcha know they make a critter repellant spray for bulbs and there were articles that suggested putting fine steel wool around the bulbs so critters don't eat them...and I used both. Evidently I didn't ruin the bulb plantings with my nutso perfectionism since so many have already popped up with the warm weather we had last month...LOL. Now we'll see if they bloom but I'd really have to be bad for at least some daffodils or crocus not to bloom. Whatever comes up is fine. It'll brighten up early to midspring and beyond if I'm lucky. I'll be checking what to do with each little plant so I don't ruin them when I get them past germination since I'll be so excited and probably overwhelmed once I see leaves popping out all over...hopefully! I'm hoping I calm down about all this "process" after a couple of growing seasons and learn things first hand after I see how things work out. Being new I like to read the cautions and things that didn't work out for others. I just keep trying to absorb things. Anyone need some Bulbtone? I've got enough left over for another couple acres of bulbs...LOL.

Mites!? Yikes! What a shame... my imps just drowned. There was little I could do... They continued to bloom, but they just looked SICK. I'm sorry to hear you had trouble. What's in your begonia collection so far? Did you ever figure out how to post a picture? The Mr. Stripey - good guess, but no. It's an Indian Stripe. Someone sent me the seed and was shocked to find it's degree of 'striping'. It has caused quite a stir to those who like a striped tomato. This was my first striped... And it tasted wonderful. Fully ripe it looked more like this: I also grew another striped: Berkeley Tie Dye: It was a little too late for my garden though :( I didn't have a banner year for tomatoes but it wasn't all that bad either. I grow tomatoes for the taste - the stripes are a BONUS!!!! There are actually many ornamental tomatoes out there - or what I'd consider ornamental b/c I think they taste terrible. Berkeley Tie Dye and Indian Stripe are beautiful and taste real good too - Especially the IS. Mmmm! I'm a firm believer of neglect for tomato plants. I plant in the ground (not containers) so that makes life easier... but I don't spray, I don't fertilize, I don't water... unless I absolutely have to... I do use a lot of compost and what not so I can get away with it. My plants were probably 7-8 feet tall this year... Big tomatoes are directly related to the size of the bloom - I consulted someone who is a lot more knowledgable than me and she said that she believed that it was environmental - she saw A LOT of mega blooms this year. Oh, almost forgot this one - I'm not a fan of green-when- ripe tomatoes but this one Cherokee Green was fabulous: Ok, completed patio pictures: All in all I thought it came out good. I hated that hill, so this made it more functional. The rescue pup came from Mississippi - I don't know any of her history. She's approximately 2 years old - she shows signs of abuse (timid and skiddish, scarfs her food, will thief food, etc.) BUT she is the most lovey dovey pup! We just love her. She's definitely a 'water dog'. Good thing! We adore her and would recommend rescuing a dog to anyone. I can't imagine why someone would have let this dog go - she clearly had had puppies - but she very close to a pure breed (if not a pure breed - she'd be a chocolate/yellow lab - her nose and eyes are the color of a chocolate, but she is clearly yellow). So that's the scoop on her! Good to hear from you - and let's see some pictures!!! :)

Tulsastorm, You're welcome. It took me years to figure out that peppers produce less well if they get too cold too early in their life. When I lived in Texas in zone 8 where the air and soil warm up about 4-6 weeks earlier than they do here, I could transplant tomatoes and peppers at the same time, most likely because once it warmed up, it tended to stay that way. The peppers and tomatoes would flower and set fruit at the same time. After moving here in 1999, I learned I couldn't plant them at the same time here because tomatoes are a lot more cold tolerant and can handle our wildly fluctuating spring temperatures here, but peppers cannot handle the recurring cold nights. Tomato plants will tolerate temperatures in the 30s (as long as they stay above freezing and are free of frost, which can form at temps as high as 38 or 39 degrees under some conditions). Peppers, though, if exposed to soil temperatures below 55 degrees for even just a few days, can be damaged. You may not see any visible damage on the plant, but the plant growth often will stall and then once the plant begins growing again, it just never really kicks into production very well. I am very careful to keep my pepper seedlings inside when the weather is cool, and even if I carry them outside to soak up the sun every chance I get, I still carry them back inside on any night when the forecast low goes below 55-60 degrees. I get huge yields from my plants and I believe that's because I never let my pepper plants get cold. I also harvest peppers amazingly early....last year I got the first big harvest of sweet bell peppers on June 22nd, when I harvested 6 lbs. and the first big harvest of jalapenos on June 15th, when I harvested 10 lbs. 2 oz. Last year, I stopped weighing the pepper harvest at some point (probably early August) because I just thought to myself "enough is enough" but I know I had harvested well over 75 lbs. of hot peppers and over 30 lbs. of sweet peppers by late August and continued to harvest from in-ground plants until the first frost in October. I harvested my last pepper from container-grown plants that I was overwintering (in the garage at night, out on the sunny patio on days when temps were above 40) in January, and then the plants in the garage froze this week. I'm giving you those numbers to show it should be easy to get good pepper yields from plants transplanted into the ground in late April or early May after the soil and air temps are in the right range. Peppers are prone to many kinds of diseases including those that make the leaves puckered, twisted and mottled. Pepper Mosaic Virus is often the cause of these issues. You also will see yellow or brown splotches on the leaves, and these are caused by many different bacterial and fungal diseases. Also, if you have sandy soil or sandy loam, root knot nematodes can cause the plants to stunt and be unproductive. One way to know if you have root knot nematodes is to check your plant roots when you pull up the plants in the fall. If you see knots and galls on the roots, you have nematodes. You can do everything right in terms of meeting the plants' needs, but if you have root knot nematodes, you may not get many peppers. I am confident that if you make sure your young pepper plants never are exposed to cold temperatures early in their lives, you can get a really good harvest from them. Dawn

Well I'm NOT a blue person. Indoors I have NO blue. My husband doesn't understand this. I have no idea why I feel this way. Outdoors things are different! I have a blue/yellow/white garden bed which I love. Yes, delphineums, catananche, campanulas, baptisia and more, are mixed with trollius, coreopsis moonbeam, peony Claire de Lune and low growing white clematis and aquilegia. It is a big mix and wouldn't be any fun at all without the blue! There are loads of clematis that are purple or blue/purple, but also some very nice blues I think. You do get into the question of "what is blue?" My husband and I think this could well be a male/female issue! Also, by saying a flower is blue, perhaps a catalogue gains more sales? * Posted by: coolbeans (My Page) on Sat, Feb 2, 02 at 13:12 This is my VERY favorite thread, and I totally agree with all those who feel that there is just "something" about blue flowers; they ARE magical, they ARE very special; and they make me happier than any other color flower. Don't know why...I just started a flat full of Bluebird delphinium seeds I saved from my one lonely plant last year. A bunch of them germinated, so now I can't wait to have a huge stand of them! Maybe they won't bloom this year, but maybe they will. And also "true blue" penstemons, I'm trying for the first time. I can't get enough of this precious color. * Posted by: Anne_Marie_Alb (My Page) on Tue, Feb 5, 02 at 17:47 WOW....... Did anyone realize that this thread started almost 5 years ago... on Feb. 15, 1997!!!!! I am amazed it has survived that long. Probably, the oldest thread still on the top page! I wonder if "Clare B" (who started the thread) is still an active member of the Garden Web!!! I personally love blue flowers (I mean blue, and not purple, which I also like). I can't believe how many blue flowers I am starting from seeds this year... and that was just a pure coincidence! I also love RED flowers.. Maybe, I should start a "red flower" thread! I will first check the archives! * Posted by: Clare (My Page) on Thu, Feb 7, 02 at 20:34 Yes, Ann_Marie, I am still here! I will be a bit sad to see this thread fade away when it hits the 100 posts mark. After that, the threads are closed. I don't think I have any true blue flowers still. "Victoria Blue" Salvia is the closest thing. I use it a lot. It is such a heavy, long bloomer, and about one in twenty of them will survive winter here. Just wish I could predict which would survive so that I could save seed from those alone and perhaps work up a more hardy strain. By the way, the Hydrangeas in Memphis, Tennessee are incredible. Some are so saturated blue that I'd have to call them navy. * Posted by: Dswan (My Page) on Sat, Feb 9, 02 at 22:37 I'm going to add to this extremely long thread only because there really is something to true blue. I grow from seed a very difficult plant to propagate called Penstemon cyananthus or Wasatch Penstemon. I cold stratify and plant these every year in hopes of gettting one or two in my garden every year. Absolutely gorgeous. * Posted by: Rosa (My Page) on Mon, Mar 11, 02 at 10:24 Did no one mention Gentians-now those are blue! (along with my favorite penstemson of course-some are indeed blue). * Posted by: pineshade7b ) on Mon, Apr 15, 02 at 11:02 i agree with gloria mc coy. i love blue and green , they are my favorite colors in anything. just look in my house and closets. blue..ocean, blue jeans, my own eyes are blue and my husband's are green. many reasons to answer -why blue. although i do not "hyperventilate" , if i should go into a nursery and ask for a blue -flowering plant and the staff looks down their nose at me, i'll know now that they are only doing it because they think I'M a snob. until i adopted gardening as a serious hobby i had no idea that blue was a "snob" color. i just naturally began to look into flowers in the colors i liked personally. you learn something new everyday. i would have been hurt and confused to walk into a nursery and be looked at like a pariah, what did i say? now i know, thanks clare. * Posted by: DesertGardner (My Page) on Fri, Apr 19, 02 at 12:38 Wow - I never knew there was such a controversy over the color blue in the garden. After reading all the posts, I now understand why some gardeners prefer the color. And I have to say that I've never met any gardeners whom I would consider snobbish. Most of them are really quite down to earth! (if you pardon the expression...) I recently tried planting a red, white and blue flower bed, with 'Victoria Blue' Salvia being my blue color. It's a little too purple and doesn't look right as a "patriotic" design. I will probably tear out the red and white and keep the "blue" (purple) since it seems to like this desert heat. Someone mentioned black flowers, and I remembered seeing black pansies in the most recent Burpee catalog. They're a beautiful velvety black with a spot of yellow in the center. I think I'll plant some this winter, and start an obsession with black flowers! (just kidding Clare...) -Kara [* Posted by: yeona_sky (My Page) on Mon, Jun 24, 02 at 0:37 I just bought a blue poppy and am nervously watching its progress. My success with blues has been an up hill battle, but that hasn't changed my desire to spotlight it in my garden. Why blue?, again it's a passion with me. Clare, I hope you get the last word on this thread, and I hope you understand Why blue, a little better. * Posted by: Duster (My Page) on Wed, Jun 26, 02 at 23:56 I agree with the many others about getting annoyed when purple is referred to as blue. Maybe that's why I take up the cause of truly blue flowers! 99% of my Delphiniums are the true electric blue ones. I'd love one of the Himalayan Poppies but just not right for my little yard. I like the blue flowers, rather than the blue foliage plants. And no, blue is NOT my favorite color - I have nothing blue in my home decor. I just like the uniqueness of the TRUE blue and my stubbornness to get people to stop calling it purple!!!!