Do you know their songs? She Drives Me Crazy Don't Look Back Good Thing Suspicious Minds Looks like we're hijacking another topic! Hey, to stay on topic, there once was a topic entitled, "I painted my traps" and he wanted to know if that would hurt the plant

Hello Dani. Your's is not a stupid question. I am in zone 5a Wisconsin and a few years ago, I didn't know there are three foliage habits for daylilies. I am Not a pro but I am a passionate hobbiest hybridizer. I will share the best of my knowledge on the subject, hopefully with input from others. Dormant, semievergreen, and evergreen. What does that mean? Some daylilies need to go dormant for a set period of time. Dormants have foliage that will completely die off to the crown and grow back after a set period of time. Light and temperatures can trigger dormancy cycles. I am sure there can be other triggers. when some daylilies are temperature triggered, they do not go dormant in climates that do not drop below 40 degrees or lower over sustained periods of time. Semievergreens are kind of inbetween dormant and evergreen. Some sev's. foliage will die off like a dormant in the colder climates while remaing green year round the warmer climes. Like the dormants, there are many variations to foliage habits. The evergreens are exactly that. They stay green year round. Many are cold hardy and do well in the northern zones when mulched over winter. However many have a hard time recovering from frozen foliage or can die from a freezing. Where freeze thaw freeze occurs, evergreens put all thier energy into growing when the ground thaws. When refrozen, they again die down to the grond and lose all the energy they just put into new foliage. When that process repeats a number of times, the evergreens can deplete themselves, either killing the plant or draining too much energy to grow into a strong healthy plant. Hardiness is what you want to determine for what you plant in zone 4. Foliage habit does NOT determine hardiness. I have planted over 75 named cultivars in 2008 and most are evergreens. I mulch my sev's and ev's so the ground stays frozen longer under the mulch. This way, my daylilies stay frozen underground through most of the freeze thaw freeze periods. Winter mulching is also a great way prolong spring flower bloom periods. I heaviny mulch over some of my bulbs so they pop up much later then those not mulched. You may want to list plants you like in the forum and see if anyone else has had any luck with them in your area. Or buy from norther hybridizers. Ask if they grow outdoors or in greenhouses. You want plants that have been grown exposed to the harsh winter weather. I took big risks planting alot of the cultvars I have, and so far no fatalities. I had to mound the mulch over many of them today as we are going into another period of freezing weather.(you've never suffered cabin fever till you garden in the north) I hope this helps, and again I am not a pro.(yet) I am still learning lots about daylilies and rely on input from others to expand my understanding of the plant world and to correct my misconceptions....Tobin

Just having new hickory floors laid. They are cupping and have raised up in other areas. The house was not air conditioned when they laid the floors. AC has now been running for 2 weeks and cupping is still present, though better. When floor guy came back the moisture meter showed the plywoood to be at 16 and hickory was below 6. Now hickory shows at 14 and plywood at 12. Does this mean anything to you all? He said he did not check the moisture before he laid the floor. Seriously!

I feel your pain! I was in similar situation to you where I really needed the privacy for the WTs in my master bedroom, and in my LR and DR which face the street. For all rooms I opted for pinch pleats on rings because I felt they would hold up best with the daily opening and closing that I wanted to do without having to fuss with the drapes to get them to look nice every time I opened/closed them. The difference is that in my LR/DR I went for an expensive custom solution for both the drapes and rods from Calico Corners and in my MBR I went for an inexpensive stock size pinch pleat drapery panel from JC Pennies and rod from Lowes for a fraction of the cost. The custom drapes and rods are of a much higher quality and built to last, but surprisingly enough I also like my JCP drapes which are holding up well and if I decide I want a different look in 1-2 years, I won't feel bad about replacing them, though my LR/DR drapes should last a lifetime and will become outdated before they wear out. Living Room: Master bedroom: When sheesharee was exploring options for her LR windows, kmcg also had a pretty solution using a combination of the rod pocket style Pottery Barn drapes on rings (no clips) with woven wood blinds for privacy. It looked really nice and if I had to do it over again, I think I would've went with that approach for my LR, but probably not for my DR since it's a bay window. While I love the look, I still do question how well the rod pocket style on rings holds up if they are opened and closed daily. It would be worthwhile to search from sheesharee's thread on this since kmcg said she felt they worked best as stationary panels and not operable drapes.