This has been my best winter garden for some time. I planted in October, while the soil was still warm. By mid-November, my plantings later stalled in the cold weather subsequent to that. They are only now starting to perk up with some warm days and the flooding has stopped as well. Can't really complain, we are "doing" fresh veggies for dinner every day with leftovers for the hens. My GS e-mailed me from the lower Fla islands that many snook perished, as well as about 100 manatee. The cold weather was too long for them to survive. Sad - I love the wild life in that part of the country. But - sorry guys, my garden is looking great. The banana tree is a bit anemic, but will survive. Some sweet yams that I planted (too soon dummy) are also looking a bit peaked, but most everything else is greating the new spring with enthusiasm. Bejay

You can grow rhubarb as an annual. Start the seeds indoors in late winter (they're easy to start). When you plant them out, follow all the recommendations for care and feeding that people mentioned above. The stalks will be smaller, so plant several plants. You can put them closer together than rhubarb that you grow perennially. And if any live through the next winter, you can keep them or pull them out, as you choose. I used to do this when I lived where rhubarb did poorly, and it worked quite well. In fact, the small stalks didn't need much peeling and were quicker to cut up. If it's warm enough in winter where you are, maybe you could plant the seeds indoors in late summer and grow it as a winter crop. (I hope it's OK to just jump in like this--I'm new to this and don't know what's customary.)

It's so nice to see this thread resurrected. I forgot about it! Now I can talk about my results with my desert trials. Agastache sprite (thanks, Penny!) and cana have come back each year. They smell like root bear. I put one on my deck table for the hummingbirds and take it indoors every winter. I have many penstemons that thrive here, one is Red Rocks from Bluestone Perennials. The others came from a penstemon seed mix... I just love the colors! Not all of them survived, but the ones that did, are gorgeous. Mexican goldpoppies (from a southwest seed supplier) fill my garden and also any sunny, gravelly area. They bloom from June through many frosts. They seem to love cool weather (since they bloom in February in Arizona...70 degrees and sunny). They are the cheeriest flowers, glowing gold in the sun. Their petals feel incredibly soft and velvety. The opuntias died a horribly ugly frozen death. We're returning to Tucson area this winter. I'm checking on and hoping for rainfall because that's what brings the annual poppies and desert bloom. The year after record rains brought carpets of flowers to Death Valley in '05, was a drought year. We were disappointed, but the green desert plants and shrubs looked great, even without the flowers. And anything is better than a foot of snow covered with 6 inches of ice pellets! lol. I hate winter more each year. lol.

Our Furby developed kidney stones when he was 4. Diagnosed as CRF a year later, when he blocked again. That's when we learned about fluid therapy and other meds to help him. (Needs Pepcid and a potassium supplement, and Cardizem for a related heart condition.) He's been great since then, and he's 8 now. He gets bloodwork and an ultrasound to check for stones and look at his heart every 6 months. There are options for CRF kitties, but sadly, some vets don't realize this. Lots of people think we're nuts for doing what we do for Furby. Meds 3x/day and fluids every other day. But he's worth it. And gelcaps are wonderful things. ;-) Labmomma, we lived in central VA when Furby formed the stones. Our vet mentioned that he (yes, the vet himself) gets kidney stones as well, and he was told or read that the highest incidence of human kidney stones in the country was in the Mid-Atlantic area. After we heard that, we put Furby on distilled water. Unfortunately, that didn't work, because he didn't like the distilled water and didn't drink as much and formed stones again. After his second blockage, we put him back on tap water, but by that time, we were in Ohio on well water. He drinks much more now (he loves to drink from the bathtub faucet), and the sub-q fluids no doubt help a lot as well. Yes, we do it at home, but we prefer not to use the dripline and to just use a big syringe and inject it. Furby is waaay too active to hold still for a few minutes for his fluids, and the injection takes under a minute. We do warm the fluid first, as that seems to make things much more comfortable for him. (Makes sense!) And he grumps about it a little, but it's really pretty easy to do. Kendal, that's awesome about Jaz! Glad to hear she's doing so well. The Yahoo group is wonderful. Here is the addy: http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/Feline-CRF-Support/ Another site with lots of great info is: http://www.felinecrf.com/ Diana & Furby