LAKE EFFECT does not rebloom here in VA. The hybridizer registered that plant in FL, where with a long bloom season, it does rebloom. However, the bloom season lasts for about 4 weeks here.

Hi Tom, Do I have any left? I have so many columbines I can't eat on my patio table and summer's over so they need to find homes!!! I have 5 of the William Guiness, how many would you like? (5 yes?) I'd like to try a cape fuschia. If you can spare some seeds of C. aramdi, evergreen clematis I'd love to have some. Would you like some Blue Butterfly Dwarf Delphinium? Slugs (or some other creature) ate every blasted leaf off of every seedling & plant of these that I put out this year and I must have planted at least 30. I have two left in pots that I won't feed to those culprits. thanks! Andrea

Michele, go back through last summers threads, there are so many beautiful gardens from the members of this forum. I do like seeing the pics they post of each one, but I really enjoy the pics of entire gardens. (Ken, doubt very seriously if anyone could get sick of your pics, no matter how many you post, bring em on!) I have 90 different varieties and about 200 total, 3 did not come back this year, Cherry Berry (who woulda thunk it) Gold Standard and *sob* my absolute favorite (always happens that way) June. That one was one I had been dying to get my hands on, top of my wishlist kind of thing. And then the seed escapade, I cried over that one as well, a member of GW very generously let me SASBE for several cool varieties of seeds, I had them in my greenhouse tray, some moron (meaning me) moved them to the barbecue grill where that side piece is to set plates down? Well the wind sure took care of that one:( I have no idea why I chose that particular idiotic spot. Now I have told hubby there will be no lawn mowing on that side of the house, he told me to get real.

My name says it all...67...I'm sure over time that will grow. I LOVE perennials, don't buy annuals unless something catches my eye...no, im not a perennial 'snob', i just got hooked on perennials like my mother did before me....waiting for spring to see the babies return is such a thrill.... I fell in love with hosta back in the fall of 1980 when I asked for a piece of hosta called Lancifolia...plain green, pointy leaves, but was she a beauty. I took her home in a green plastic bag and left her in the backyard, sitting in the bag, against the house until I had a chance to plant her. I had three small children, got busy, and soon forgot about the hosta. Winter came, winter left, spring followed, and I was outdoors checking on my "babies"...I gasped when I saw the garbage bag, forgotten and still propped against the house but the gasp was one of amazement! Poking out of the bag were all these pointy, green tips, obviously a hosta was growing!!!! Imagine that...a garbage bag 'hosta bed'. That was it for me...anything that could survive such neglect deserved a place of honour in my garden. To this day my daughters and I refer to this hosta as Mary Long because that is the lady who gave me my first hosta. I still love the older hosta from which all these newbies originated, in one form or another...now we have fancy names, exotic names, suggestive names aka Striptease, Obscene Gesture, etc etc etc but they are all hosta, they are beautiful, majestic plants and will never go out of style....they don't demand special care, if you don't fertilize they still reward you with flowers and they grow bigger and more beautiful each year but they DO COME BACK, YEAR AFTER YEAR. Saying I collect hosta really means I am hiding behind the excuse that my gardens are a jumbled mess, somewhat of a jungle and the hosta that live in those beds have the job of detracting from that mess...lol. Here's a pic of the Lancifolia that survived the garbage bag and fondly named Mary Long. This is the "mother" plant from which my divisions are made. She's been moved so many times I can't remember how many, yet look at her...isn't she a beauty? Anyone who ever says "less is more" ......surely that saying doesn't apply to hosta, does it? If that's the case, then I'm a hopeless case. My backyard is 42ft. wide only but it is jammed with all perennial plants. I have a bed under the tiny deck which consists of hostas, astilbes, hellebores, one heuchera, a columbine, a dwarf goat's beard, a peony, a shrubby sweet pea perennial...a bed on the other side of stairs, consisting again of hosta, peony, bergamot, anemone, brunnera, jacob's ladder, primula, easter lily, astilbe, a bed along each side of the house with more hosta, fern, tall phlox, lillies, a bed under the front window which continues down the front walkway entrance, consisting of rose of sharon, weigela, spirea, potentilla, yellow Itoh peony, hosta, then a long (not really long) free standing bed out front, forsythia row down one side of driveway, and a bed that incorporates the city-planted maple...mainly comprised of variety of low growing sedums. Just a whole lot of jumbled plants, nothing fancy or scientific, but boy they sure make me smile!!! Gardening gets me up and at it, sore back and all, and keeps me moving and happy with the world in general. My motto is that if I see it and like it, it goes home with me! I'll worry about placement later...I have no room for anything more, hosta or otherwise but, like a lot of you, I dig up more sod, lug soil bags around and plant to my heart's content!