I read on their sign they have Calylophus, which I highly recommend for caliche soils. The plant doesn't say much the first year, but it turns into a focal point by the second year because it bushes up and bears hundreds of flowers from spring to fall. It is also a native evergreen, drought tolerant and it reseeds freely. To me, it's a must have. Omar Here is a link that might be useful: Calylophus

Dee--When you're in Myrtle Beach, I hope we're in your EATING THOUGHTS---lol. Remember, you have to answer to us upon your return! I am almost through my 5th day of CONTROLLED EATING!!!! Hey, ya gotta start somewhere and I am doing well so far. The weather is HOT --for HERE, milkdud--lol--we're in the upper 70's and lower 80's. That helps me drink more and eat less. I'll have my FIRST weigh in on Monday, so I'll be here for that. Wodka, I am on the same page with you and the dentist's drill. When I was a youngster, my dad and mom took me to an old military dentist friend and his novocaine was WAY out of date and didn't work. I never recovered from those experiences and every dental visit is MAJOR trauma for me, emotionally---besides pinching me in the pocket book! DonnaSNJ! YAY! Good to hear from you! Stay in Touch!!!!! Whatcha been doin'? TreKaren---You've got more guts than me. I went to ONE cycling class and quit---about 2 years ago. It KILLED ME! I do ride my "outside" bike in the summer though. I have padded seat bike pants AND a gel seat---hey! Even though I have extra *fat* padding on my fanny, I still need the other padding; I don't know why! Joyce---You don't want to see your grandchildren, I gather! haha. I can TOTALLY relate to getting your house ready for an open house--it took me SO long--but I finally found I couldn't be a perfectionist about it. Just so the surface stuff and CLEAR it out into the garage or a storage bin as much as you can---then breathe, relax, and get ready! REANNE, NHSuzanne,Marci, and Besh---Get in here---NOW. You guys are MIA too often lately. We're SISTAHS, remember. Ohana now. No one gets left behind... What ever happened to PJ from CA? I wonder what she's up to???? Anybody remember her? Tikanas was her online name. I so enjoyed hearing about her busy and active life... Okay, enjoy! Oh, BTW, DH fired me yesterday at about 9:30am--WOW! I am back at work now, but I have to tell you, working FOR your spouse is a sticky wicket--in more ways than one. (I've only been fired once before, when my ex was having an affair with my boss and she wanted me out of the picture. They served me divorce papers on my birthday...but that was another lifetime ago...)

Jennifer, Could the dog have been bitten by a snake she was trying to bite? If you can look at the hard knot in her mouth, do you see any fang marks? When we have a dog with swelling around the mouth/nose/snout area, it usually is a copperhead bite. No treatment required except maybe Benadryl for swelling. The only time we've had a dog stung by a bee or hornet wasn't in the mouth---was in the facial area and there were knots at the sting sites and swelling. Benadyl was the solution. With the onions that got wet, it probably just means they'll need a longer drying period. Watch them for mold though. Amy, When Houzz changes things, I just roll on and work around whatever they've changed. I ignore notifications, FAQs, etc. in the gardening season because I don't have time for that stuff. I just come here to chat with y'all. I'm just grateful they saved GardenWeb when it looked like it was going to go away and disappear into the realm of used-to-be's. Someday it will go away and all we'll have left to help us stay in touch is the OK Gardening-related FB pages. I think it is just a matter of time. I'm surprised your Red Rivers are done. When I've grown them they're usually about the last ones to mature, and it often is late June or sometime in July. This has been a weird year, and my onions are weirder than anything else. Half the 1015Ys fell over and I harvested them. The rest remain strong and upright and still growing. Normally they're done by now. One Candy has fallen over. None of the others have. Copra? Nothing yet and I wouldn't expect it. Either last year or the year before they were the last ones to mature and it took them forever. This has been such a weird weather year that I guess nothing should surprise us at this point. Some of my tomato plants have great fruit set. Some do not. It appears directly related to how early I did or did not plant them. The ones planted in late March (I only planted 7 that early) have had a huge fruit set, and we've already harvested most of that fruit----dozens and dozens of tomatoes. The rest, the ones that were planted about 10-14 days later, have set maybe 1/5th as much fruit. Some have not set fruit at all. We went from too cold to too hot literally overnight here and the plants just sat there forever, shellshocked and doing nothing. It probably doesn't help that the rain mostly keeps missing us. For as bad as I think they look compared to most years, at leaste they are relatively healthy. We may be too hot now for them to ever set fruit and I'm not going to baby them through the whole entire summer, so if they want to stick around, they'd better get busy setting fruit. Next year I'll probably plant them all as early as possible and cover them, instead of planting in stages. Rebecca, We don't have JBs down here. I guess they haven't yet made it this far west and south. We might see 1 or 2 stray ones each summer. Dorothy (Mulberryknob) lives in Adair County and I'm almost positive she mentioned buying and using some type of Japanese Beetle traps from someplace like Home Depot in previous years. I've never seen those traps down here, but it seems like they worked pretty well for her. Larry, I'm sorry about the hail. I hope the damage wasn't too bad, We don't get much rain here in the summer months, and I do try to grow dryland style as much as possible, but I still have to irrigate quite a bit. I wish I didn't. It is a grandchildren weekend so I didn't step foot in the garden today and probably won't step foot it it tomorrow either. I'm okay with that. After working in it all week in the heat, as much as I do love it, I need a break and weekends are a good time to take a break and spend the time with family and friends. Dawn

The Truth is a Cave in the Black Mountains -- Neil Gaiman