It's officially autumn here tomorrow and my four sisters (giant sunflowers is the fourth) are doing well, but I think you might be sensible to avoid the sisters for now: the system's really designed for growing storage crops, allowing them to mature and dry in place: winter squash, dried beans and dent/flour corn. Not very kid-friendly food! Snap beans and sweetcorn need to be harvested often and it would be hard not tho wreck the plants. Popcorn's a great kid plant. Strawberry popcorn can be eaten fresh too and it's a cool colour. Maybe they could try a modified three sisters: popcorn, sunflowers and a winter squash like 'Jack be little', that should be ready for halloween, if that's your kind of thing. Corn HAS to be planted in a block and a bonus of popcorn is it can be planted close. It needs an enormous amount of nitrogen to do well, apparently people used to bury fish carcasses under the mounds. I'm too wimpy! I grew leguminous winter cover-crops, chopped them down and smothered them with seaweed and lawn clippings, let that break down and planted the sisters. I've foliar-fed it a couple of times, chucked on more grass clippings and aged sheep poo. Not something I'd do in a large space, but the corn (Navajo black) has between 3 and 5 cobs each. It feels like the Little shop of horrors out there sometimes: "feed me, Seymour". Beans wildly clutching everything, corn in all directions, every morning I have to wrestle the pumpkins off the paths...

It's hard to say. There are a number of them but I won't know until I get the beds cleaned and start pruning. Anything that's been a wimp and not growing or blooming is on the list right now. Snowfire for sure is out of here this year. Tammy, I love how we all play Russian roulette with the beds and the pots, lol! Andrea, wait! Don't assume that those roses are dead yet. Have you pruned a few inches off the canes and looked at the pith to see if it's white? Mine have only just started to wake up so I'm sure yours are still sleeping. Just because you planted the bud union high does not mean that all those roses are dead. Give them more time and let the weather warm up considerably before you dig them all up. Unless it's something I want to get rid of I never dig out a supposedly "dead" rose until about mid-June. I've been pleasantly surprised by some that just decided to sleep late. You can always dig them up and set them deeper this season to protect the grafts once you know they're alive. And my bet is that some of them still are! Lol, Ken, I guess you just didn't care for FIL! Thank you, Camp, for saving me from SS. I have been wanting it for 3 years but your descriptions of it here have made me decide it's not to be! Laura, so sorry to hear about the RRD. I hope it hasn't infected too many for you.

I got 3" pots of celosia, alyssum, coleus, and iris(don't know if they are Dutch or Bearded) from a landscaper friend of mine and all are growing healthy. Here are my other plants: two lilacs - one died, the other growing good and healthy S facing fence Celosia pulled when they died but wow they are beauties so I will plant them again White alyssum has a nice scent which I can't describe, the purple one has none. Will someone please tell me how to propagate them. They are planted on my north facing wall. Iris flowered last spring hoping they will flower again next year. My favorite is clematis as soon as the one I planted in the fall of 2004 showed the most beautiful blooms I had ever seen. So this year I planted more and have 44 planted in my 800 or so sq. ft. of garden with a few more coming this spring. 3 bush and 3 tree peonies - the trees all bloomed, but none of the bushes bloom at all. Rose of Sharon standard form on container growing good and bloomed all summer in direct sunlight. Tulips and daffodils all rotted last 2004 (heavy rain on clay soil) so the replacements were planted this fall so I hope to see some blooms this spring. I now have a raised garden because nothing seems to grow on our clay soil. Fraxinus Americana and Fraxinus Pennsylvanica are planted in my front lawn - mostly clay but it now has a drain system. What are my chances that they will not die as we are having lots of rain again this year? Any advice or suggestions will be greatly appreciated especially plants good for clay soil as my north facing wall only has a 6 inch raised bed. This is celosia: This is a clematis named 'Bees Jubilee'

I do remember reading about that name change; it's tough to keep up with all the switches in nomenclature these days. I suspect more folks might grow these if they were more universally hardy, but I think I'm at about the northern edge of their range, and the big box stores aren't likely to carry them because of that. Besides, if they were more commonly available, I would probably lose interest. I used to be fascinated by Phalaenopsis orchids as a kid, but don't even give them a second look now that Trader Joe's carries them right next to the baked goods. BTW -I have a huge collection of Zephyranthes, Habranthus, and Cooperia which is now hopelessly muddled because of label-pulling in the back yard last summer (they mostly look the same until they bloom, and some even then). I thought it had been done with too much dexterity to blame the birds, and was just about to begin interrogating neighbor children, when I discovered the culprit (caught red handed, so to speak) was a raccoon! If I can manage to propagate the Hemiboea this summer (assuming it rears its head again - it's dormant right now), I'd be happy to send you one. Just help me remember to work on that later on this spring.