It's been a really odd Spring here. Very early warm-up, then late frost warnings for the northern part of the state (the last one was last week), then 80's-90's again. The whole month of June so far has been dry in my part of the state except for a few sprinkles, we are way behind in rainfall, while the northwestern part of the state is around 300% of normal. It's almost been like gardening in SoCal, sunny, warm, and dry every day. Personally, I like that, since I was able to work in the garden every day & got everything in. But then, I irrigate; for those who depend upon rainfall for their gardens (like Denninmi) it is a disaster. All the local farmers got their crops in much earlier than normal due to the April warmup, but might lose them if we don't get rain soon. Just the opposite of recent years, when we were so wet we hardly went 3 days in a row during May & June without a downpour. Just goes to show how the weather tends to balance out over time... which is the difference between weather and climate.

We who live in the 8-9 growing zones are pushing reality is it.....but when we do it with containers, we have a chance to hedge our bets. We can push the limit, by moving with the sun. It keeps me busy, of course. And when something looks really bad, I try to give it a more moderate location. But surprisingly enough, the ones I'm having the problems with are the ones with a lot of shade and not much sun. That was the case with the one hosta which succumbed to southern blight, my lovely The Razor's Edge. It grossed me out having to bag it and throw it into the kitchen garbage which is collected tomorrow. I picked it up like you would doggy poop in the city, and never touched the pot at all. And I'll throw in a picture of my area reserved for the plantaginea offspring. The space gets a good bit of morning sun, and then the long rays of the afternoon sun as well. I patrol the area because our lot is not laid out according to the cardinal directions, just a hair off. When the first day of autumn, about Sept 21, arrives, I always mark the shadow pattern, where the sun rises and sets, because that is the true east/west for my location. The hottest spot in my garden is along our northern privacy fence. That is for the summertime. In the wintertime, that area, which is about 22 feet wide, is in total shade. I could (and plan to) place some of my hosta (in containers) along that strip of land but against the foundation which is enclosed crawl space. My original thought of locating the dwarf or minis in a strip I call the "allee" (alley I guess) turns out to be too shady, too dry, and not enough air circulation. Where we need to avoid humidity and heat, we must have air circulation or the southern blight can find its way into my garden. I know that the original hosta that I bought were planted in mostly sun up in Massachusetts, zone 5b or now 6a. I did not see them blooming, but my DH sent pictures of the plantaginea, which started my obsession with fragrant hosta. Ken, you say to throw them on the driveway, and now you copping out as a "crazy man?" No way. I remember Bruce Banyai saying that he tried everything to get his Aphrodites to bloom, including scraping the roots. Which is just about the same as throwing them on the driveway, right? Or dragging them across rough cement? So I realize that I've babied my hosta way too much. And today at the hardware store they wanted to know what I was doing with all the mulch and I said HOSTA....every one of those ladies....there were four of them....were familiar with HOSTA. And I learned that the local big garden that is so popular, Bellingrath Gardens, has its CHRISTMAS open house and tour, and that featured in their GREENHOUSES, are BLOOMING HOSTA. I hope no one takes exception to my shouting, but it is worth getting excited about it. Guess that this Christmas I'll be headed to Bellingrath with my camera to document the event and share it. I'll also have to call the gardener there (the one who does the greenhouses anyway, they have so many)and see if they are the folks who ordered a lot of hosta from Naylor Creek last year. Gary said I was not the only Mobile buyer, which intrigues me. I'd love to find another hosta lover here in town. Wouldn't that be great!!! You might take it for granted that other folks grow hosta and you can chat over the back fence about them, but HA, not around here. I said my goal was not to create a display or tour garden, but for my friends, that may be what I have to do.....as well as giving away some hosta when I run out of room and cannot say no to a pretty plant! Here is some of my fragrant hosta where they get more morning sun. The nearest ones are not the fragrants, they are beyond the sasanqua out there closer to the 7' high chain link fence. Once my star jasmine fills in, no more chainlink showing....

You will also find that knots come undone in laundering, and that is so sad when that happens. We had a wonderful granny square afghan DHs grandmother made. I kept it on the back of the couch, but eventually it got dusty and had to be washed. Yikes, it came undone in many spots. Had to throw it out. If she had woven in the ends, we would not have had that problem.

Thanks, everyone. We've already started working on the dining area issue. It was nearly unanimous here that it would be a big issue, as we suspected. Our feedback is very good on the inside of the house- these pictures eliminate the scope I guess and IRL the rooms are actually larger than what you find in many new builds nowadays. All of the bedrooms are 12x14 or 10x14. So not tiny by my standards anyways, although a larger master is certainly desirable. One of the most common negative feedback remarks we've gotten is something we can't do anything about- the location. Although we are on the outskirts of our community, we have a commercial building on the south side of our fence, and our neighbor behind us has a huge ugly shop (that's the big metallic thing). We should have planted a green screen back there when we first bought, but didn't know it would be such a distraction for future buyers. This would be a starter home- it was for us! But nice schools, nice backyard, TONS of storage (basement, standing height attic over garage, oversized brand new garage). Anyway, thank you for lending me your eyes. We are staging a dining set to the right of the couch, but behind where the camera shows. There's a piano there now, which we are going to move out. We're going to borrow a small dining set from some friends just to show the possibilities. Plus, we're going to leave the bistro table in the kitchen which would then show two seating areas for dining. Packed up more stuff already, and hubby's looking for different stand for t.v. Thanks, all!