Under ideal conditions, ground cherries drop when ripe, and those are the ones which are eaten. They should never be picked off the plant. If ground cherries fall from the plant prematurely (the green ones) they will not ripen further with time... green ones stay green. Premature drops can be caused by dry soil, rough handling, strong winds, or heavy rainfall. A couple days of strong thunderstorms knocked many of mine down this week. Green ground cherries should not be eaten. They won't kill you, but will likely cause upset stomach if you eat too many. I've eaten a few half-ripe ground cherries mixed with ripe ones, and had no ill effects. Its worth mentioning that while the green ones should not be eaten, the seed within is mature. If the green ones are thrown on the ground, many seeds will germinate the following Spring... maybe even hundreds. That's why I never have to plant them. ;-) ....(The same can be said of tomatillos.) Other than cutting off a branch that was in the way, I've never trimmed ground cherries; but I don't see why not, as long as it is less than 1/2 of the plant.

Their job offers are in Shenzhen, which is right next to Hong Kong, which is a place I've always wanted to visit. I've been reading up, and you get get to Hong Kong on the subway. I think that this will be their last year of living overseas, as they plan to go to graduate school the following year. So I definitely want to take advantage of their being in China and visit. This was the third time that I have traveled alone to visit my son abroad, and I really enjoy the solo travel. I had such a pleasant flying experience this time on Asiana airlines. I was in coach, but they have about 4 inches more leg room than most US carriers. The Xanax that I took helped too. ; ) I'll never fly long distances without it again. I was able to sleep quite a bit on the plane, something that I always have trouble with because I can't get comfortable. A couple of things that I didn't get to do on this trip was to swim/paddle board in the ocean - both days we went into Busan which is on the sea were rainy. The other was to go on a hike in the mountains. It was just too hot and humid for that to be enjoyable. We did tour some model apartments which were so interesting. Compact, but very well put together. Reminded me of Ikea style. The units we saw were between 600 and 800 square feet with 3- 4 bedrooms and 2 baths. Every inch of space was well utilized and they felt comfortable. On my last day in Yangsan one of my son's co-workers volunteered to drive us to a temple, and on the way we stopped at her apartment. She invited us up, so I was great to see how average people live. That is me in the picture. Thanks for the compliment fourkids. : ) Here's the kitchen in one of the model apartments Here's is another kitchen picture, showing the most wanted appliance in Korea, the kimchi refrigerator. It's the one on the right, next to the regular refrigerator. Here's the scale model of the complex. They really look better up close then en masse as in the pictures above.

Hi, I’m in Palm Beach Gardens (Zone 10B) There are three varietals in this bed, the two taller ones are Mammoths. The one on the right is 10ft. This is my first try at Mammoths but, I’ll share what I did and what I think worked well. Planting Time: Direct sow in February, thin out slow growers to prevent crowding. Two seeds every 30”. Soil Prep: Dug a 2ft deep trench, 1ft wide. I have sand as well so I amended the soil with a compost/top soil mix from HD and granulated fertilizer for shrubs. Next go around I‘m going to add bone meal earlier, probably around thinning. Watering: Water in the morning daily until they get about 1ft tall, then I typically water every other day if there’s no rain. Important to make sure soil dries a bit between waterings and very important to give them a slow deep soak to encourage good root growth. These just survived a severe storm with 40mph+ gusts and hail. I think the care to the root system helped them. Feeding: Liquid fish fertilizer heavy nitrogen every 14 days. Added an inch of manure on the surface when they got about 2ft tall and dug out a 3” deep moat, 1ft radius around the stalks. This really helped to direct the fert and water to the roots. Added bone meal to the surface around the stocks in mid April, I’m going to do this earlier next time. Although it seemed to really help with producing new buds on the Autumn Sun varietal. I applied neem oil at night a couple times early on, soak the leaves on top and bottom as well as spray the soil surface. Also I had to apply copper fungicide early on to fight leaf rot. Got a little lazy and the Jerusalem Golds suffered. These get great morning light, slight shade in midday from a palm. The shed in the background blocks a significant portion of direct afternoon light and there’s a row of Autumn Suns on that side as well. I think they’d be taller with more light but, that’s a guess. I also, didn’t apply liquid fertilizer as regular as I could/should have. I think they could’ve benefited from a couple more feedings. Next go around, I’ll experiment with the feedings. I hope this helps.

Definitely a spirea, starting with the first shot. As with the azalea what remains is to figure out which particular kind of spirea. With this latter shrub it might actually be possible to come across the same variety looking at photos on the web. (And confirming afterward using detailed written descriptions). Whereas there are just too many evergreen azalea hybrids to be sure of a specific identification using only the two photos shown here.