Thanks all! It was a BEAUTIFUL weekend here in Ohio - just perfect for the garden fair! I did fabulous! The garden signs didn't sell as well as I had hoped, but did sell several. I brought home about 30 planters out of 101 and have them listed on Craigslist and Facebook trying to sell them this week. Having the fair on Father's Day sure hampered the Sunday traffic - it was a slow day. Saturday was swarming tho. It usually is the weekend before Father's Day, so it was different this year. I think that is why I have so many containers left. I will probably also do a farmer's mkt. to move the leftovers - I do that every year. Looking forward to a long weekend/mini vacation and hope to get in some R&R!

Took first cuttings in Jan to have stock plants for now.... yesterday I started to take cuttings from these plants will have 5 colors & about 500 of each color.....

Jim I am so glad you have had some memorable hummer experiences this year. The migration is still in full swing and I have three here right now. My last adult male left on Sept 1st. and the last adult female departed about a week ago. I have at least one juvenile male and 2 juvenile females but with the juvies until they start getting some of their adult plumage it is difficult to tell the males from the females. Most of my adult birds this year were strictly feeder birds. They were definitely fast food junkies but once the juvies came on the scene both feeders and flowers were in high use. I have an old clothesline that we cut done to be used in a smaller area for the hummers and they loved perching by the door first thing in the morning after they had breakfast watching and waiting and several would greet me when I walked out the door. If I was replaceing a feeder with a fresh one I always had one come right up to the feeder as I was hanging it back up. They also liked to perch on that line and watch me while I mowed the grass or collected flower seeds. Several times they flew up to me when I was removing dead flower stalks to check out what I was doing. A couple of times I had a female come in so close that I could feel the breeze from her wing flapping against my cheek. Remember to keep those feeders fresh especially when we have had the hot dry temps we had this summer. I never leave a feeder over two days as the nectar will start to ferment and if they do drink it, they can get sick. Often times they will just abandon the feeder. Even if you think all of your hummers have gone for the season, please consider leaving those feeders up for at least 2-3 weeks after your last siting as there are still quite a few migrants north of us that are yet to head south. There are large swarms still in Mich and Wisc. and quite a few swarms still over in Ontario from what I understand. If you can maintain at least one feeder until we get hard freezing temps please consider doing so. There are more and more reports of out of territory migrants showing up all the time. There is a Green-breated Mango Hummingbird that has shown up in Wisconsin whose most northern natural range is Mexico. Here is a picture of the Green-Breasted Mango. There have been Rufous in Ontario, Rufous and Calliopes in Pa. so you never know, a stray, out of range migrant could just as easily show up in NY. They are just the most amazing little creatures and I am so glad to see the growing interest in hummers and including hummer plants in gardens Penny

Nice to 'see' you again, Carl. Should we assume that you've retired from the show's marketing committee? I did watch the video and it's lackluster. Maybe they'll include time-lapse growth films of plants and flowers, or garden development? But it looks like drama and romance films are the focus. Might be interesting to see what clever artists create to support that theme. I'm glad I went to the show a few years ago and I'm happy that this old tradition is still happening, despite it's evolution toward formal floral design. To maintain an event since its 1829 birth, in this fast-paced country, is a great achievement. I'm going to spend some tourist cash in Pennsylvania, but it will be at Longwood Gardens. (you're VT weather stick is waiting for you) Jane