Hopefully this pic will work better.

I have a pretty big hillside that I need to plant with some type of ground cover. The site has clay soil and gets several hours of direct sun in the morning but then it gets dappled sun for the remainder of the day. Does anyone out there in GardenWeb land have any hints for the use of Cranesbill as groundcover? I'm also wondering where to buy it, etc. Does it attract hummingbirds at all? I'm thinking of the Rozanne Cranesbill and then maybe a pink variety also. Your thoughts?

This is a final follow-up to my experiment freeze drying with dry ice. I rate it a dismal failure. It may be theoretically possible to freeze dry foods with dry ice, but it certainly is neither convenient nor cost effective. Another way of freeze drying in the link above was to flash freeze with dry ice, then put the frozen foods on an open tray in a frost free freezer. I did that with a tray of apple slices. They are not yet at the dehydrated bendable stage after six days in the freezer. I don't know if they will ever get to a dry enough state to snap when bent. I do not rate this system as practical either, because it takes the purchase of dry ice and use of lots of freezer space for the process. The third method of freeze drying was to flash freeze with the dry ice, then put it in a vacuum chamber to draw out the moisture. Wartach astutely noticed the $15 harbor freight vacuum pump. The acrylic for the top is available from Lowes. I was planning to use a large stock pot for a chamber and a cut rubber mat for the gasket. I would still have to figure out the line to the chamber from the pump. Thanks, Rick for the reminder to be careful with dry ice. At the moment, I am so disappointed in the dry ice, I may not even proceed with the vacuum chamber experiment. Its interesting that people put processes on line that they have never tried and then do not report any results of their own experiences. I don't want to leave people with a false impression so am supplying this report. On a pleasant note, I just finished reading the biography BIRDSEYE, The Adventure of a Curious Man and I highly recommend it. Birdseye learned about flash freezing while living in Labrador and preserving food for the winter. He wondered why foods frozen in mid winter stored so much better than foods frozen in fall or spring. When he returned to the states, he used EXISTING knowledge and technology to invent a practical way to flash freeze foods and store it. Unfortunately he was ahead of his times. There was not distribution or storage available either commercially or in homes to appreciate what he had done. Never the less, food storage world round has been transformed by his success and perseverance. After succeeding in that venture, he turned to dehydration as the most practical way to preserve and distribute foods. He did not live long enough to discover that his original flash freezing was also the key to quality dehydration. Carol

I know that vinca is supposed to be fast growing and invasive, and there are plenty of people trying to get rid of it, but mine is still fairly thin in places I *want* it to grow. It does allow weeds to grow in the spaces while it's getting established. Pachysandra is the same way--very persistent even where you don't want it, but seems to take a fair amount of time to get really dense. At least there are likely going to be ample people willing to give you free or cheap offerings of both vinca and pachysandra. Same thing for wintercreeper, but do read the warnings about its invasive tendencies, especially if you're near woods. I've become a big fan of microbiota. It may not be the fastest thing on earth, but it's noticeably increased. It takes snow load well, it's soft in texture, it out-competes weeds, and it's had very little winter kill. If you want to see what a really well established patch looks like, check out Tower Hill Botanic Garden.