I have about 6 or 7 flats started and mostly doing well. I have 28 tomato plants just put into separate pots (3 varieties: Black Krim, Iidi and Padova). Also, there are 3 flats of coleus, one flat with cuttings from last year's favourites and the other 2 with new seedlings. I'm trying for ones with a lot of yellow in the leaves but not having much luck. But I do have one rather small and weak one with almost completely black leaves. Probably the colour is why it's not growing very fast (not enough chlorophyl),but it seems healthy. I also have lots of baby primulas of 3 kinds. Two sets are in the cold frame as they are from last year, and the others are auriculas from this year. I got the seeds from France and had quite poor germination so I'm watching the plants I did get really closely. For unusuals, I have seedlings of things I collected in parks and nurseries locally. They didn't care if I collected seeds, so I went wild! Now I have red yuccas, pineapple lilies, phormiums, pearly whites (a local wildflower) and eryngium agavafolium.I also have 3 different kinds of penstemons, but while growing, they're very slow and tiny. Let's hope at least some of them survive!

G'morning Sue - How long have you had your BB & how much sun does she get? If you had anything like our last Winter situation, perhaps roots are just redeveloping, stronger ones. I have 2 F&Es, bloomed for 2 seasons (not counting the planting yr) ... this season F&E#1 is blank, very likely due to our very harsh past killing-Winter. I didn't worry, as F&E#2 - protected & planted under river-rocks (that absorbed warmth for roots - just to see any diff) ... 2nd F&E produced blossoms, but is dwarf (abt 11" tall) in size compared to F&E#1(2'tall& bushier) ... neither of the 2 had any canes survived, even the protected one. They do need some sun to bloom! Both my BB & F&E#2 get a bit more of sun than ideal ... suffers from some scorching on both blossoms & budding foliage. Your BB may still produce ... I just found a few late comers on mine just a bit smaller, very likely. Another note BB's # of blossoms, just half of last season's. Good luck!

Well, we had never-ending very light drizzle all day long yesterday, but it didn't add up to much more than we'd already received--we ended up with 2.6" at our house over a period of about 3 days, but most of it fell Saturday night. Suzie, I know the water can be a huge problem when you're building. After we'd lived here several years, in 2004 we finally were ready to build our detached garage/barn/multi-purpose building. We started in June, and you just knew it was going to be a bad experience when a foot of rain fell that month, and not all in a day or two...but rain each and every single day it seemed. The poor concrete guys had to fight the rain to get the slab poured and cured, and then the guys putting up the building were rained out part of every single day. It seemed like it took forever, and once they finished the building, then all the rain stopped. For a month we lived in a lake of water and mud, but that building got built anyway, albeit more slowly than expected. I hope the rain doesn't torment y'all during this building project like it did with us. It was a very productive year for the garden, notwithstanding the fact that such heavy rainfall often waters down the flavor of ripening tomatoes. Green and lush is nice, but when you're building, dry is better, isn't it! Dawn

Susan, Parts of the yard and garden are doing well. Others have been slow to recover from the deluge of rain and the standing water that persisted for so long. The six peach and plum trees are heavily laden with ripening fruit. All the trees in our landscape have a lot of new growth and seem to be quite happy. The same is true of the shrubs. The purple wintercreeper is about to bloom. It is always one of the last of the trees/shrubs/groundcovers to bloom in the springtime. Vitex and desert willow have begun blooming, as have the trumpet creepers 'Madame Galens' (orange) and 'Flava' (yellow). The mimosa tree I planted last year for the hummingbirds has buds and I wasn't really expecting it to bloom until next year. The hummers will be thrilled.In the butterfly bed out back, the climbing roses are done, the larkspur still looks spectacular, the sumac is in bud and about to bloom, and I need to do some weeding so the summer annuals don't get crowded out! In the front yard, the David Austin roses have finished their first bloom cycle. I have deadheaded them and they are putting on a lot of new leaves, and I am looking forward to them reblooming in June. Some of the 4 o'clocks are blooming early. The cannas have begun to bloom too. The Texas Star hibiscus has buds! Yarrow is about finished with its first blooms. Also in bloom in the cottage border on the eastern edge of the veggie garden: zinnias, larkspur, blue salvia, red salvia, tons and tons of verbena bonariensis, red poppies, sunflowers, and nasturtiums. Companion plants inside the veggie garden that are blooming include: veronica, dianthus, zinnia "Profusion Fire", orange and yellow marigolds, red celosias, begonias, and tons and tons of nasturtiums in shades of yellow, peach, salmon, red, coral and orange. The hummers love, love, love the nasturtiums. Inside the veggie garden, the onions are beginning to bulb up and should be ready for harvest in the next 4 to 6 weeks. The leeks have grown quite a bit, but still have a ways to go before harvest. Many sweet and hot pepper plants are in bloom and some have formed fruit although the fruit are still very small. The bush green beans did not like being wet and just sat there with little if any growth for the last month, but are finally putting out new leaves. The early corn is just tassling now, and the mid-season corn is about thigh-high, so it is time for me to plant the late season sweet corn in one location and the Indian Corn for fall decorations in a far-away location so the two don't cross. The pumpkins and winter squash are growing again (finally!) after sulking their way through all the rain and wet ground, and the melons (cantaloupes, muskmelons, casabas, watermelons, etc.) are covered with flowers, but have no fruit forming yet. The sweet potatoes, okra and southern peas (crowders, black-eyed peas, cream peas and lady peas) are small as they love heat and we haven't had much heat yet, but at least they are up and growing. They will take off just as soon as it warms up a little bit more. Then there's the tomatoes. They are truly a mixed bag. This weather has NOT been kind to them and I have had all sorts of problems with them. The plants in the two beds that were planted first had a chance to get pretty big before the late cold spells and rain hit, so they are 4' to 5.5' tall, look pretty good and are covered in green tomatoes. They have had bacterial speck on the foliage from all the rain, but have pretty much recovered from it. The remaining eight beds of tomatoes have struggled with the wet soil. A lot of those plants have just sat there and done NOTHING since it rained. I have been so disgusted--not really with the plants as it is not their fault that the soil stayed saturated for so long, just disgusted with the wet soil's effect on them. Finally, finally, finally these tomato plants are beginning to recover after looking so pitiful for so long. All of them sulked and didn't grow much, if at all. They had bacterial speck and other leaf problems, including physiological leaf curl that had me worried for quite a long time. I was pretty sure the leaf curl was because of the wet soil, but it went on for so much longer than I thought it would that I was worried I might have weedkiller drift damage from a local farm or ranch, or even curly top virus, which I had on one plant 5 years ago. This week, though, the leaves are uncurling and the plants are showing new growth....and it is about time. I was getting ready to yank them out! I have had 10 ripe tomatoes so far, all from the two Better Bush plants in containers. I had three tomatoes ripening on the Kimberly plant in a 10-gallon container, but the birds got them. The first fruit on in-ground plants will be ripe in two or three days and it will be Celebrity. Other fruit is quite large on Black Krim, Black Prince, Cherokee Purple, Snow White, Orange Santa, Beam's Yellow Pear, Black Cherry, Wisconsin 55, Early Girl, Ultimate Opener, Red Star, Galina's Yellow, Orange Banana and some others I can't remember off the top of my head. The Martino's Roma is covered in tiny fruit and so is Principe Borghese, but they won't ripen for quite a while yet. The herbs are growing like gangbusters after sulking their way through the overly wet soil for quite a while. The lemon balm was a huge monster about 18" tall. I just cut it back. All the basils (lemon, lime, spicy globe, purple ruffles, red rubin, green ruffles, littleleaf, cardinal and Italian largeleaf) are growing well, as is the dill and parsley The lemon verbena that I planted recently is putting on new growth as is the two lavenders. I have LOTs of large tomato hornworms on my tomato plants. The gardener in me watches them chomp their way through the plants with the tiniest tinge of worry, but the butterfly lover in me just ignores the damage to the plants and hopes for lots of moths! I also have parsley worms on both the dill and the parsley, and lots and lots of them too. Those black caterpillars are eating their way through all the sunflowers. I have tons and tons and tons of butterflies and moths everywhere, including clearwing and sphinx moths. I have tons and tons of packets of annual flower seeds that I haven't even planted, since it has been too wet to till up a spot to put them. I hope to get that done later this week if the forecasted rain doesn't fall. A lot of them are sunflowers, zinnias and cosmos so they will put on a good show in July if I hurry up and get them into the ground. In the lily pond, I have water lilies blooming in red, pink, white and yellow. We have lots of frogs in the pond, and a huge turtle that is about 14" to 16" long and 10" to 12" across. We also have baby turtles. We've never had turtles in the lily pond close to the house. They usually stay in the larger ponds farther from the house. The pickerel weed isn't blooming yet and neither is the sagittaria, but I am expecting a few blooms from them soon. Down at the big pond, the swamp mallows are getting quite large but none of them are blooming. They are no lilies left down there as the pond dried up during the drought and they finally died. I don't think I will put water lilies back in the big pond until it is completely full again. In spite of all the spring rain it is only half full. The wildflowers have put on an amazing show this year. We still have a lot of spring bloomers in bloom since it has been so cool and cloudy. The early summer bloomers are putting on buds. The prickly pear cactus is blooming right now and I just love those flowers too. I am outside all the time and can't even get caught up on the mowing, weedeating and weeding. I haven't watered much, except for all the plants in containers. In those containers, all the coleus and and ornamental sweet potatoes are looking mighty fine! I have recently planted a lot of new gladiolas and caladiums and they are beginning to come up. In the dog yard, their forest of sunflowers are now about 6' tall and are making enough shade that the dogs can lay in that shade part of the day at least. The gourds and winter squash that Duke (my rottweiler-terrier mix) planted by burying squash and gourds after he was through playing with them in the winter have sprouted and are growing. He is such a good gardener dog. The scarlet runner beans I planted near their east-facing fence are just beginning to bloom. These plants will help shade the dog yard and also provide the hummers with lots of lovely red flowers. That's all I can think of now, and I am sure I forgot to mention a lot of things. We have rain in the forecast for just about every day this week, but none has fallen. Dawn