My Lady Banks rose blooms pretty much all season from sometime in June until after first frost. Hydrangea 'Endless Summer' starts blooming early July and blooms through light frosts until I get a hard freeze. Both these plants have very visible flowers. I also have a Daphne x transatlantica 'Summer Ice' that is blooming now (this is an unusually early spring, but it does usually bloom with the daffodils) and will bloom until hard frost. It has small clusters of little white flowers and subtle white edges on the leaves. It's not a 50 MPH plant, but one you want where you will walk by it to see the flowers, the lovely leaves, and enjoy the scent. Another way to extend your season of bloom for a shrub with a short bloom season like a lilac, is to plant a clematis a few feet away and train it into the branches of the shrub so that the clematis blooms appear among the leaves and branches of the shrub. Many of the type 2 and 3 clematis have a relatively long bloom season.

I have pals in Ocala, just wish I had known about this in advance! IS ANYONE GOING!??! 1) is there a handout that can be posted here about the rooting technique? 2) any idea on the bulb prices? 3) is anyone willing to pick up some and ship to TX? THANKS, K

Sorry I can't help you with the technical side but I can add my 2 cents about two zones. We have 2 zones - not upstairs, downstairs like you're considering but side by side because we have 2 separate systems. The original house is on one thermostat with it's own HVAC units and the 1000 square foot addition has it's own HVAC system. One important consideration is that placement of the thermostats. You don't want to locate it in a room that is the coldest or hottest because then the temperature in that room will dictate the temperature for the entire zone. We had to move the thermostat because it was located in the room that had the most extreme changes in temperature in the summer and winter. When the thermostat kicked on in the winter to make that room comfortable all the other rooms were too hot and we had to play around with opening and closing the room registers. Another factor is how your house is situated on the lot. Does one side get the full heat of the afternoon sun? Are there trees to provide shade in the summer? Is one side exposed to winter winds? The builder put dual zones in my DH's business office which is only one story but one side was next to the paved parking lot and received the full effect of the summer sun. That side of his office was nearly unbearable in the summer even with awnings over the windows and Pella blinds inserted between the window panes. By making it dual zone they could compensate for the heat in that side of the office without freezing out the occupants in the other side. It might be helpful to get another estimate - and another opinion. As I mentioned I'm not knowledgeable of the technical side - exactly how does the automatic zoning work?

22 or 23 bulbs? Oh Scott...hahahaha! I remember those days! When my new large bulb order arrived this October, I pulled out leftover inventory that went into my fridge in Oct 2014 and many are sending up scapes and look relatively good. HOWEVER, there were many bulbs in the fridge that were totally dedicated and trash. I never keep my own "good" bulbs in the fridge for much longer than a couple of months. YOU'LL NOTICE that if you ask 10 people a question about growing practices, you'll likely get 10 different answers. With time you'll figure out works best for you.