I don't think there's anything to be worried about. Mine are at the same stage. The freesias will probably bloom in the fall, with the grape hyacinth and ranunculus blooming in the spring. Grape hyacinths are fun because they start growing so early, which means you have some nice foliage when lots of other plants are dormant in winter.

I gave my plants their first haircut around June 1st or 2nd. I use the small hedge shears and they make short work of this task, it really doesn't take long at all. While I'm at it, I trim back any dying bulb foliage. Usually I trim only once in June, but will play it by ear. This year I trimmed more perennials than ever before - Asters, Boltonia, Phlox, Solidago, Helianthus, Heliopsis, Rudbeckia, Monarda, Eupatorium, Mums, etc. With some of them, I cut the whole plant back, with some (like Monarda didyma) I only trim about 1/2 the tallest stalks. This way, I hope to extend the bloom time - the stalks that weren't pruned bloom earlier, the ones that were bloom later.

I've had a few of these around the last few years. The babies are sooo cute, down to the yellow stitching pattern on the back! I don't really like spiders but as long as they eat the bugs in my garden, I'll leave them alone. A few weeks ago I had a yellow T-shirt on and the next thing I knew a yellow crab spider was on my sleeve, camouflaging itself I guess. I walked over to a daylily and tipped it onto the flower.

Carol, We're addicted too and the cherry-habanero isn't bad either. The cranberry-habanero is great spread on a little bread with a turkey sandwish on the weekend after Thanksgiving....it spices it up! Keith, Jay probably would have a better answer on an Anaheim with more heat because he grows so many peppers. I haven't grown College 64L as far as I can remember, but it is said to be very mild. If you want only a moderate amount of heat, you can't go wrong with NuMex Big Jim, which has a Scoville Heat Unit rating of 1500-2500. If you're looking for an Anaheim hotter than your typical jalapeno would taste, then I think NuMex Heritage Big Jim is supposed to have about 7000 Scoville Heat Units, which would make it nice and hot. Jay or George might know of an Anaheim that is hotter than plain NuMex Big Jim but not as hot as NuMex Heritage Big Jim. I've linked the NuMex Chile Pepper Institute for you. It is a great source of info and you also can purchase pepper seeds and pepper-related items through their website. Dody, I don't know how to explain the recent pepper success I've enjoyed for three years now. I guess I finally got the soil in my pepper beds "just right" because they have gone nuts for three years in a row. If I didn't can, dehydrate and freeze so much food for us to eat all year long, I wouldn't be able to cope with the huge harvest. I learned a big lesson last year---process 'em when you pick 'em. I was really busy with lots of stuff and let the peppers pile up in bowls on the counter for a couple of days. When I finally "got around to" processing them, I had 1800 peppers there and a very miserable week of processing them alone while DH was out of town. I was in the kitchen for 18 hours a day for several days and by the time I was done, I hated peppers. So, this week, with another huge harvest looming, I picked half of the peppers in the big garden, and that's the 900 I'm working on now. I should finish processing those today. Then I have the other half of the big garden to pick, and a few plants in the smaller Peter Rabbit Garden. I expect the next 4 or 5 days will be very "peppery" and then things will calm down a lot. One thing about growing peppers here is that they've never let me down the way tomatoes sometimes do. No matter the weather, no matter how neglected the plants might be during the height of the harvest season, they just keep on producing peppers. I probably grow more than any sane, rational person should, but then having the huge harvest allows me to can hundreds of jars of salsa, pepper jellies and canned peppers, and we give them as gifts to our family and friends. George, I wish I could have been a fly on the wall watching the "macho men" eating that "Habanero Magma". I bet it really would have been a sight to see. I had a friend pop a whole yellow habanero-type pepper into her mouth once thinking it was a milder squash-type pepper. She was in a lot of pain for a while! The name of the pepper? Fatali. I always say to people to be wary of any pepper with the word 'fatal' in its name because that's a clue! Dawn Here is a link that might be useful: Chile Pepper Institute