I know it is actually easier and definitely cheaper in the long run to be organic. One just needs to be a bit more attuned to what is going on with the plants and take appropriate measures instead of a one gun fits all aproach of chemicals. The challenge here is trying to get a little harvest in the mean time while building the soil organic matter and food web. I've noticed that mulch laid down her seems to decompose about four times as fast as a similar mulch put down up there in Michigan. They do say that the higher the zone number the larger the amount of organic material needed to amend the soil. I grew up near Traverse City, Michigan and still spend time up in Alden (South end of Torch Lake, to the east of the Grand Traverse Bays.) I wish I could afford to live up there full time. I like the cornmeal idea as it not only feeds microbes but in turn combats some fungal diseases. Same with milk against powdery mildew while at the same time fertilizing.

NA, re your plants, I haven't grown those cultivars but have grown evidently similar one. Re Echinops ritro: would also recommend Echinops ritro myself: Had no problem at all with several cultivars. Have found even great globe flower (different species), think we have 'Arctic Glow', takes up space, but is very clump-forming. Re the tree mallow (the Lavatera): only grown Kashmiri tree mallow; relatively short-lived but, in this case, gently reseeding. Very hardy here. Re the hollyhocks (Alcea): never had any success with them. Not sure why, but they're apparently short-lived but reseed themselves. No problem with invasion, by seed, with that sort of perennial to my knowledge (at least in our growing conditions). Re that heritage Anemone cultivar: have tended to avoid garden (hybrid) anemones as too prone to run. Was one already there when I put a mixed perennial garden in in 2000 (garden which I still maintain). Never succeeded in eradicating (by hand) that one well established hybrid Anemone. It's very worst behaviour was running into shrubs. However, after reading other folk on the GW Anenome 'Honorine Jobert' thread you were on, I came to change my mind about that plant. I still chop away at bits of it, but it really adds to providing flower colour at a time of the growing season when fewer attractive perennials are coming into bloom. I guess then if you're attractive enough, you can get away with a bit of misbehaviour!

Terry, I've never had a DD that grew well, bloomed well or looked like a rose bush, they all kicked, and before they kicked, they looked terrible. My Belinda's Dream has grown huge and looks great all the time, and the scent of the flowers is absolutely the very best. A little BS and no PM. Mutabilis hardly seems like a rose because it blooms all the time, no probs with BS or PM at all. I have to cut it back to keep it from overtaking it's neighbor roses. In it's 5th year, it's 4' wide and 4' tall. Graham Thomas has a little BS, no PM and is one of the most beautiful yellow roses I have ever seen. The shrub is 6' tall and 3' wide and would look nice even w/o the blooms. But oh, what a charmer! Queen Elizabeth is fabulous, but has some probs with BS. My roses are planted 5' apart so few of them have PM, but many have a little BS in late Summer. I just groom off the affected leaves and prune canes that look bad and forget about it. Bayse's Blueberry is a wonderful bright pink single rose that makes great red hips in fall. Very little prob with BS at all. Blooms all the time and the shrub is full and lush, and bright green. Temptress grows near a big old mesquite tree, but looks wonderful nearly all the time and makes the most beautiful, creamy-white blooms. It's a T and smells great. I have a Blue Girl (a hyb Tea rose)that is in it's 5th year also and this is the first year it really took off. The blooms are truely blue, sweet-scented and huge. The plant is 5' tall and 3' wide. Lastly I have a Penelope that used to be in the rose garden but it looked so unhappy, I yanked her out one day and plunked her in a hole way out in the middle of the yard. You should have seen that girl take off the next Spring. I didn't amend the soil or even water that rose. The following spring she was solid pink with blooms starting at the tip of each cane and covering it from stem to stern. Every year she has gotten bigger and is now about 8' across and 6' tall. Incredible rose, she just wanted her own space. She's located about 200 feet from my front door, but when she's in full bloom I can smell the scent when I walk out of the house. I'm the very laziest rose gardener there is, and my roses mostly "root-hog-or-die." I don't like to use any kind of chemicals because of the lady bugs and the fireflies; I have a go-zillion of them and want to keep it that way. So if the rose looks bad all the time, it just has to go to a new home. And Cynthia, thanks for the suggestion, I'm going to go take another look at Lafter, that's one I haven't tried. I have two empty spots in my rose garden this fall where I lost JFK and somebody else this summer. Weatherford Gardens is getting in a Fall shipment of roses right now. Cheryl

Kim, Sophie has my sympathy. Our dogs hate it too when the neighbors are shooting. I usually let them stay in, but sometimes they just have to go out at least for a couple of minutes, and then they are at the back door barking and carrying on and wanting back in within 60 seconds. I'm glad Sophie did so well getting her pins out. Nice score on all the seeds! You CAN teach a class. Just pretend you are talking to Ryder or to any of us instead of a larger crowd. You can do this! Sorry about the wind. I wish it would blow hard here---it would help dry up some of this excess moisture, but I know you don't need it there. March is coming and you live in a very windy part of Texas, so I'm guessing the wind is going to be an issue for quite a while yet. Is there any sort of windbreak anywhere near your new garden plot? Nancy, That sounds like a wedding miracle to me! Of course you cried---seeing one of your kids so happy on their special day is going to lead to tears, and rightfully so. Kim, Most of the seeds you got should do just fine with direct sowing. I am a little worried about the wind, but we have wind here too (usually not quite on the scale you have it there) and it doesn't seem to blow away my seeds. Everything you listed except ice plant and delphinium should be fine from seed sown directly in the ground. Ice plant---it might do okay. Do you have clay there? It needs well-drained sand or sandy loam and it does not tolerate staying overly wet for long periods of time. Delphinium is very iffy. They are beautiful flowers but they like prolonged, cool weather so your luck with them in any given year will depend more on the weather than anything else. Think of them as something that would like the weather in the cool, wet parts of the Pacific Northwest more than the west Texas plains, and don't get your hopes up too high. I simply grow the closely-related larkspur instead, and even the larkspur sometimes rots off at the ground when we are too wet for too long, but it tolerates the heat a lot better than delphiniums do. I have had the best luck with delphiniums when sowing them in the fall. They will germinate and remain as small plants down close to the ground all winter, but then when it warms up they'll grow pretty quickly. Sometimes I have managed to get blooms before the heat kills them, and sometimes not. Our Spring weather is so variable that the results were all over the place when I tried to grow them here. Whenever I see them in bloom in gallon pots in the stores in the Spring, I want to buy them and bring them home and plant them....but I don't.....because they'd basically be expensive annuals here in our hot climate. Jennifer, Three sounds like a nice number. Another 100 might be a bit much, you know, and that's doubly true of the straight runs, which tend to lean very heavily towards being roosters and not pullets. It sounds like yesterday was fun, and I hope you're outdoors enjoying your free afternoon now. Nancy, Well, 10 minutes of plant shopping squeezed in at the end of a day with the girls was enough to hold me another week. We saw ladybugs all over the garden center flying around, and then saw some outside Wal-mart so they certainly are swarming and enjoying this lovely day too. Rudbeckia is a large family with many members and some do great here for me, and others do not. I think some are more finicky about drainage (and powdery mildew) than others, but they're not the hardest things to grow if you choose the right ones. In my garden, most rudbeckias are happier with morning sun/afternoon shade than with full sun all day long. Kim, That's crazy about your friend's Dodge pickup. Try explaining that one to your insurance agent! We do try to be careful which way we park on really windy days, but it is more to keep the wind from slamming the car or truck door shut on someone who's attempting to get in or out in strong wind. I never once thought about the wind being able to break a door off a vehicle. It still is sunny and warm outside, so Tim's got ribeye steaks (our standard Sunday dinner) cooking on the grill and I have everything else cooking indoors. I suspect he'd have been out there grilling even if rain was pouring down, but I'm grateful he didn't have to do that. It only took one week of nonstop rain and cloudy skies to make us tired of the rain. I'm not wishing for another month or two with no rain, but I'm hoping whatever rain we get over the next couple of weeks at least will come in smaller, more manageable amounts. Dawn