Kim, I think the "little men in the white coats" are coming for my forsythia. they had yellow flowers on them for the third time since Dec. Now it's freezing out again and they are talking about 50's near 60 on Sat. then more rain and maybe a bit of snow on sunday. It's Tuesday that could be a real big storm, maybe a white noreaster. Ya right. Haven't started yet, vowed I would wait till Feb. like I did last year and ended up with way, way more seedlings than I could even give away. Maybe I'll start this weekend before the big snowstorm. LOL Fran

Well I actually requested that my library buy it and now I have a copy in hand that they purchased at my request. :) It's a well done book and covers a wide range of flowers but for me it doesn't go into enough depth. Specialty Cut Flowers by Armitage and Laushman is much more useful for me as a grower. I think that Cut Flowers of the World would be most useful to florists or individuals who are mostly interested in floral arranging rather than floriculture. I've included a link to a photo of two facing pages so that others can see a typical example of the format of this book. There are about 40 pages on care and handling of cut flowers (only 6 pages on cultivation and harvest) and then 329 encyclopedic pages in the format shown in my photo. It is nice to have good quality photo examples of the flowers but as a grower I also need in depth species specific information on production and harvest. Here is a link that might be useful: Cut Flowers of the World Example Pages

The lettuce, swiss chard and spinach that I had in pots are gone-they started becoming bitter and bolting about 3 weeks ago. Days are already getting very warm down here in south GA. The garden peas I planted in February are beginning to flower now, but I'm wondering if they will produce well with the high temps we are having. I started tomatoes, squash, zukes and eggplants from seeds in January and set out the transplants on 3/25. Birds clipped the tops of some of the tomatoes for nesting material so I caged them (the plants, not the birds) and the plants are coming out again. The stems of the squash and zuke transplants became mushy at ground level so the plants went belly up(I had read in another post that you can smear Vick's Vapor Rub on squash stems to prevent SVB, so that's what I did.....but I think the Vick's killed the squash and zukes!) On 4/12, I direct seeded squash and zukes to replace the plants I lost. The flea beetles are already chewing holes in the eggplants. YEA FOR GARDENING IN SOUTH GEORGIA!!!

Helooooo friends! Here’s my total failure in air layering: I don’t know why, but all 8 branches failed. I applied rooting hormones on cuts, wrapped them with sphagnum moss and coco coir, I kept media moist with some rooting hormones as well, and.... nothing. Nada. Not even one scrawny root! To stay on a positive note, I’m glad that I didn’t kill those branches. Well, I have to take it back... I killed them other way. When I tried to root them as a cuttings, lol. 90% of those crocked, and a few still hanging in there, but again, no roots or signs of new growth. I’m kinda blaming it on weather, our April and May was cooler than winter! So I’m thinking I should try it again when weather will be warmer. All this torture was done indoors, and I’m thinking of taking my cuttings outside at least during a day. Nights are still 48-51 here. Forgot to mention, some of them in perlite/coir mix, some in perlite. And one in water with root hormone. I did water them tho.... didn’t know till yesterday that cuttings needs to be in dry media. Ugh.... Probably will kill the rest of them soon, lol.