That's exactly what I have including the sown webbing and grommets except mine is 30% shade. The 30% really isn't much shade. It's hardly noticeable when underneath. I think either would work for most fruit crops. I'd definitely go 47% for berries, maybe apples but probably not pears that like more heat. Either one will exclude larger insects like stickbugs and would probably help on codling moth if well sealed. There is another very similar that has the weave heat set in place. It might do better on excluding insects especially after a few years. Mine does have some holes and areas where insects might get through after 30 years use. I don't know if the heat set polypro would be as durable but would consider it if buying more. PS: The fabric does need protection at points of unusual pressure. So like on the poles supporting my melon screen I've tied cloth around the pole top. Between poles is one wire. No wear on the wire but the pole sticking up an inch or two higher needs the edges softened. I'll post a picture of that if needed. Here is a link that might be useful: heat set polypro shade cloth This post was edited by fruitnut on Wed, May 29, 13 at 12:08

My family is safe, for now. With all the people coming back into the Houston area, things may go from bad to worse. There are power lines down. Most of the stores are closed. There are no utilities in many areas of Houston and Galveston. No water, unless you stored some. No gasoline, except at a couple of stations. There have been shootings at gas stations, 'fueled' by those who took more gas than they needed and left none for others, maybe even people more needy than they. Other people are doing ruthless things to get to the front of the long lines and get in front of those who have waited hours in line for gas. Some lines are a mile long. The dam for the city lake has been weakened from the storm. The high winds caused big wave surges on the lake, which pushed the boulders that hold the earthen dam to the point that it is threatening to give way. All that holds the water back now is the earthen dam. If that happens, the flooding below the dam would be catastropic. Their is a whole community built down there below that dam. (Now how stupid is that?). So the city alerted people that they had to release massive amounts of water on the morning after the hurricane and again the next morning to lower the lake so they can make repairs and shore it up. They went door to door and told them that it would most likely flood the homes closest to the river and that they had to leave. Once again, some people refused to leave their homes - the water was released. My son and his family had been preparing for the probable advent of big, bad hurricane since Katrina hit, so they were well prepared - enough to last for weeks, he told me. To some people, it is a game, evidenced by the signs they paint on the boards over their windows. To ride the "big one out" shows you are gutsy, and not afraid. Good grief! I am glad my kids are more mature and responsible than that. Nonetheless, I have not had much sleep all week. We talked for hours every night on what they could do to get out of there, and then when that became hopeless, what they could do to survive a direct hit - at that time, the projected path was directly through Galveston and Houston and would have followed I-45 North...right through their house near the Woodlands. It always floods there and the tall pines tend to fall over on houses and make formidable projectiles in the band tornadoes. They boarded up their house cleared the yard of any thing that would be projectiles and taped cardboard over the windows on the inside to keep glass from shattering on them. Then my son and his brother-in-law went to other areas in town to help some elderly folks board up their houses, too. I was proud of them, but I was more than worried, let me tell you! Even after the hurricane shifted, they still got the edge of the eye bands with 100+mph winds, which the news did not mention or played down. The bands were weird. They would come through out of the north, and then in a few minutes come back through out of the west. In between, it would be calm and the sky would even clear and there would be rainbows. Then the next band would blow in with 100-80+ mph sustained winds. This pattern repeated from 2:30 a.m. Saturday morning through Saturday afternoon when the winds finally calmed down to about 15-25 mph. The Houston-Galveston officials kept warning people not to return to their homes. There is known structural damage to high- rise buildings, and they are worried there is more unknown. There is the potential for electrical fires from damaged lines and maybe gas fires. Power poles strew the streets and big trees lay everywhere. WHole walls of buildings collapsed and some may yet collapse. Potentially hazardess materials may be on the ground in some places and the water may be contaminated in some areas. There is limited available food, and no water, no electricity or other utilities in most areas, and then the potential flood danger in the Trinity area. The fallen trees on houses and in the streets of housing areas add to the problem. There will not be any trash pick up until Tuesday or so. No sewer in areas. SO the city officials need time to check things out and make sure it is safe for people to return. But, many people did not listen. They no longer have faith in the officials and leaders, and who can blame them, I guess. And yet, they need to exercise an ounze of freaking common sense, something that most Americans just don't seem to have anymore. Still, there is the fear that there maybe many more deaths in the aftermath. And oh, by the way, my DH got a job offer from a company in Raleigh, NC. Uh....just what I thought I really, really wanted all summer - to move to the Carolinas, so we could be closer to my daughter and closer to his folks who live in SC, and where I would be in gardeners heaven and be around all you really groovy people I have come to adore....and maybe even get back into my art, and start painting again. Uh,....what's that old addage - "Be careful what you pray for, because you just might get it?" - something like that. Tell me that the Raleigh area is not in the hurricane zone. Uh, Waaaaaahhh. ~Annie

Pam, In Oklahoma, our middle name is "bad weather". I think that tornadoes are my least favorite form of bad weather, although hail storms rank a close second. At least with hurricanes, y'all know it is coming and you even have a pretty reasonable idea a day or two beforehand where it will make landfall. You have wind speed estimations, elaborate storm surge maps and forecasts, etc. Up to a point, you know what to expect and about when to expect it. With tornadoes, it is their very speed and randomness, as well as their unpredictable nature, that makes them so scary. I think I could handle living in a hurricane-prone area better than living in a tornado-prone area. Much remains to be learned about tornadoes. I think the NWS does an outstanding job of telling us when the conditions exist for tornado development, but it must be our job to pay attention, heed the warnings, and be alert and aware and ready to seek shelter, because no one can predict the precise location where all those conditions will come together at any given moment and form a tornado---or a dozen tornadoes---or a hundred tornadoes. No one can predict if any specific tornado that forms will be a pretty mild EF-0 or a severely horrific Ef-4 or EF-5. No one can predict how long they will last, although the NWS does warn us of days when long-track tornadoes are more likely to occur. I am glad you and yours were safe when the tornado hit your village, and I know your husband and his chainsaw were greatly appreciated. Looking at the damage I'm guessing it likely was an F-2 or a very low-end F-3? It is wonderful y'all were able to help. A couple of years ago, a small community in the county adjacent to ours was hit by an F-4 tornado in February. It was the worst damage I've ever seen from a tornado because the county I live in doesn't have nearly as many tornadoes as other parts of Oklahoma, and when we have them, they tend to be small and fairly weak. Of course, we have only lived here 14 years, so maybe we just haven't lived here long enough to see a big one here. My DH was one of the dozens of emergency responders who spent the next 24 hours on search and rescue efforts, assisting the storm victims in any way possible. It warms my heart to see how many people respond and help, and every bit of that help is needed. Oklahoma City is hit by more tornadoes than any other city in the United States. Since records began being kept, there's been over 140 hit the OKC area, according to info on the NWS Norman Weather Office's website. The records date back to the late 1800s. We moved here in 1999, just a couple of months before the horrific 1999 tornadoes hit OKC-Moore and other communities. Prior to that, in our head, tornadoes hit people "out there" in tornado alley but I don't think my DH and I had thought they'd ever be a threat to us. After we saw the magnitude of the damage in the OKC area, which is a little over 100 miles north of us, we had a tornado shelter put in before spring of 2000 rolled around. Have we used it? Oh yes, several times a year. Have we had tornadoes near us? Yes, within our county and in the adjacent counties, but so far not any on the ground within maybe 20 miles of us. We've been lucky. Oklahoma weather drives us gardeners nearly crazy. It doesn't matter how beautiful your yard and landscape may be, how lush, beautiful and productive your veggie garden might be, or how heavily loaded with fruit, your fruit trees, brambles or berry plants might be---the OK weather can wipe it out in the blink of an eye. While tornadoes are a huge threat, we also often have very destructive severe thunderstorms, usuallly accompanied by high winds and often by hail in very large sizes that demolishes everything. We have derecho winds that blow through and flatten plants to the ground. We don't often have a lot of snow storms that cause damage, but very destructive ice storms are fairly common. I'd take a heavy snow storm over a light ice storm any day of the week, but we don't get to chose which one we get. Rain often comes in two forms here--either almost none at all for long periods of time, or inches and inches at once, often resulting in flash flooding. Gardening in Oklahoma is not for sissies! Earthquakes have always occurred in Oklahoma, but many of them are too small to be felt. We had a big one (big for us, but I bet folks from California would laugh at us because it was not big at all compared to theirs) last year that was felt as far away as Dallas. It was the first one I ever had felt here. Then, a couple of weeks later, I felt another one. Once was enough for me, and twice was too many. I'll be alright if I never feel the ground shake like that again. Bon, I don't know how many earthquakes Oklahoma normally has in one year, but over 1,000 were recorded in 2010. Of those, only 103 were reported as being "felt" by humans. The rest were just recorded seismically. I haven't seen 2011's numbers. I've linked a webpage with lots of OK earthquake data on it, including recent earthquakes. I cannot help thinking that the fracking procedures being used with oil/gas wells are contributing to our more frequently-felt earthquakes. Down in the D-FW metro area where fracking has gone on at a tremendous rate for about 10 years or so, they are having fairly frequent small quakes. I grew up there and never heard of an earthquake there, not even one from long ago, until they started fracking the wells. The weather here is supposed to be just absolutely gorgeous this week, and I am looking forward to accomplishing much in the yard and garden, but we never, ever can let our guard down. You cannot be a gardener in Oklahoma without being weather-aware and, in fact, every resident of Oklahoma needs to be very aware of the weather around them at all times, not just the gardeners. It isn't that we have more weather than anyone else, but I think it changes incredibly rapidly here and it can turn violent in so many ways...and does so with great regularity. It keeps life interesting anyway. Dawn Here is a link that might be useful: Recent Earthquakes in Oklahoma

Great photos. We can identify some if you would like us to try. I see what I think is Francee and two I think are u. albomarginata. Others might be able to name others. If you want us to try that, start a new post with ID or NOID in the subject line. Give us a big photo of your hosta and only put two per post. (It gets confusing when there are more than two varieties in a post.) I, too, have had good luck with Hallson's. I also like Land of the Giants and Green Mountain. I've always heard great things about Naylor Creek. Here's a link to a thread we did a couple of years ago, entitled "where to buy hosta". Pay attention to the places that are recommended by more than two people. http://forums.gardenweb.com/discussions/1963531/where-to-buy-hosta?n=51 bk