I have big trouble with one of my 7 Purple Robe Locust trees. All look healthy except for this one. It made a feeble attempt to blossom and leaf out. The blossoms died off within 3 days. Now it has very minimal green leafing all over the tree (not just in one area) but the leaves wither in the middle of the day and look crispy. Late in the day close to sunset there is again minimal green leafing which lasts through to morning. I had a arborist look at it, he saw no borers and no obvious reason why it shouldn't be as healthy as the others. I've given it some SuperThrive but I'm afraid I'm going to lose it. If anyone has suggestions please help!

I had V. odorata and quite a few other fragrant violets growing on Long Island, New York as well as in Connecticut. They bloomed well without any fertilizer in a shady spot in the garden. I did have a healthy amount of mulch which had decayed in the soil and being woodland flowers, this would probably be a good addition to your garden. Dont give up on them. I too am struggling to have them flourish in my garden in Fort Lauderdale, Florida and have many die when planted in the soil. I now keep them in pots, again in a shady area but with filtered light. So far I have had one wonderfully fragrant violet thats just in the process of ending its bloom. I am about to try to find other fragrant violets - probably buy from Logees or Canyon Creek http://www.canyoncreeknursery.com/violets.html and I'll hover over them watching their growth in my clay pots here in the semi tropics!

Hi, Bmoser, The Cuban Blacks are very productive for me this year, the Japanese Trifele only moderate. I was a little premature about the Robeson Angolans. They are turning out to be very productive. It looks like around 40 to 50 per plant. We end up growing way more than we can eat and give away loads, particularly this year. The most popular tomato that we grow actually turns out to be Black Cherry and it is phenomenally productive. The two plants I have growing are eight feet tall and just loaded with big long trusses of cherries. The most unusual tomato that I'm growing for the first time this year is something called Koritschnevaja. I've never seen anything like it before and the flavor is very good and concentrated. They're small, though, 2 1/2 to 3 inches, perfect ovals, glossy brown with dark green shoulders. It's VERY productive. I have to qualify everything with the fact that this has been a phenomenal growing season here. Everything has just fallen into place perfectly, as it rarely does - rain, sunshine, temperatures. We garden organically and sometimes the yield is poor and there is a lot of foliage disease. This year I had a big load of organic compost brought down from the Vermont Compost Company. I planted the seedlings in deep holes filled with their compost. I have to think that this had sometime to do with the enormous size of all the tomato plants this year and the amazing yield. I shared the load of compost with my buddy, an elderly Indian guy who has been gardening around here for decades. He also had terrific results. Lou

Oh, your comment made me wonder if doing it in a fabric will make the fit different? Really? Maybe I should look harder for a robe to buy............. i finally finished finished it yesterday and wore it around. I don't like it. Yes its to big but maybe I could live with that but I don't like my experiment with the fabric. I do like experimenting but this didn't turn out quite right. I still think it was a good idea but I shouldn't have used quilters fabric - but the Moose and Bears with plaid were so cute! The only flannel I could find was quite thin and almost weightless. i just couldn't see how it would hang down at all. So I got the bright idea to buy double the fabric and have it quilted together. Honestly the baby blue quilted inside with the dark blue bears and moose on a baby blue background on the outside is very cute. I think it looks nice. But the quilting flannel is very stiff and its just not very comfy, especially because its big. So not only did I buy twice the fabric, and pay to have it quilted, I had 3 private lessons to help me do it (6 hours worth which still wasnt enough time to really do fitting what with pinning, cutting etc). So the most expensive robe EVER:) I will try to sell it, at a huge loss, on craigslist.