For those of you having troubles with cukes and squash, you might want to inter-plant with nasturtiums next time, try it! My garden in 9b is just going to be one year old, or should I rather say, I will be celebrating one year of being the garden's loving custodian....so I have lots of troubles. In march/April I had a jungle of brassicas (both rapas and oleraceas). I had this green explosion and almost ran out of room in the freezer. Turnips, kales, collards, bok choi, beet greens, you name it. When it got warmer the harlequin beetles attacked them and they all died, after I had hopes for their perennialization (a word?). The Harlequin proceeded to suck the jalapenos and the tomatoes, ruining several tomato plants too. I was (am) so afraid to put brassicas on the ground again, until I realized I need to give them sacrificial crops. This started to work to some extent last year, and my fear was that sunflowers would not sprout at this time of the year. Guess what? they did! I now have sunflowers growing and I just planted some kale and mustards near them. Not sure if nasturtiums will do the trick for brassicas but I put them in too. We also got some brussel sprouts trying to germinate in a protected environment (terrarium), I think I will use the plastic cylinders from soft drink bottles that grandad from Louisiana is showing on the cole crops thread. So glad I overcame my fear of trying brassicas again. I still have to successfully grow cauliflowers and broccoli though. We will see how the brussel sprouts do and think about it, my cauliflowers never flowered last year, but the leaves were good....LOL In the mean time, the amaranth is still producing as many greens as I need. They are tougher leaves now that the plants are seeding, so I just cook them longer and they are still acceptable. Whatever tries to attack them gets in turn eaten by a large collection of lady bugs that seem to hang out near them a lot. I am encouraging more lady bugs by planting more and more cilantro. When they reach their end I will still have several dozen pounds of frozen green in the freezer from the spring. After that I hope the cole crops will be ready to harvest, and the harlequins somewhat controlled. So I hope anyways. I was so furious when i found out they are an introduced species! grrrr.....and no predators either, not even chickens will eat them. Anybody knows of other sacrificial crops to deter bugs from cole crops? I will need something after the sunflowers run their course, but I suppose since now I know they will grow at any time, I can keep planting more and more sunflowers. A very handsome looking sacrificial crop at that.....

One of them, the decora which had the little shrubby growth at the bottom recovered and made new small shoots in the late summer, and this spring they made shoots nearly as big as the originals making a full recovery. the other one, makinoi which had only 2 large culms with very little foliage eventually lost their leaves and didn't make it so it was a goner. It seems like severely root bound plants can make a full recovery as long as they still have viable buds and the rhizomes haven't dried out completely, but there is a point where the shoot buds are no longer viable and the plant is pretty much dead as they become a living stick. Many commercial nurseries take over-sized divisions sticking them in pots with minimal soil which leads to root-bound plants very quick, and as these divisions dehydrate very easily, the lose viability very fast. Many times, nurseries are only worried about the bottom dollar so they don't care if the plants die because they already made their money and apparently aren't interested in repeat customers. If you are planning on getting bamboo plants, I would suggest first trying to find a local grove of bamboo you can dig from, and then perhaps looking on bamboowebforums to find a forum member you can make a road trip to to collect many bamboos at once. It is definitely worth the time. If you can't find anyone then I would suggest bamboogarden in Oregon because I know it is a legitimate bamboo nursery.

Well, it's not just home depot but also other established garden centre. And one must think too that these stores are only the retailers. The suppliers of these plants are also responsible for misleading labels. Last year, I purchased a fountain grass with guarantees (silly me I lost the receipt) for a $7 price tag. I don't normally purchase things at full price. What lured me to this plant was that it was supposed for a zone 5- my zone. It died on me. Sometimes I get fooled into thinking that a new breed was produced to be hardy in our zone. So there are so many factors as to why I might get fooled into buying plants not ideal for my local zone. Incidentally -- for those buying tropicals of any sort, most cannot tolerate the sun here in North America (except the lower states). Most tropicals are usually below the canopy type plants and therefore are shade plants, and most tropicals have the protection of the very high humidity in the tropics. Now some will eventually tolerate the outdoors here, like banana plants bajoo something- or the hibiscus. Don't subject them immediately to the outdoors but do so gradually.

I had a total hysterectomy at the age of 36 due to an ovarian cycst the size of a grapefruit. (It had become that large in a matter of 3 weeks). They had prepared us for it being cancerous but luckily it was not. When they opened me up, I also had endometrosis everywhere. They literally had to scrape all my internal organs and even removed my appendix. I had already had uteral surgery to help me get pregnant and a C-section with the smiley shaped incision but they had to do a huge incision that goes from above my belly button all the way down to you know what! It kinda looks like an anchor with both incisions. Let me say this was way back in 1986 so alot has changed since then. I took estrogen and progestone for a few years then dropped it to just estrogen. I stoppped that about 10 years ago now and my biggest complaint is that everything on me is dry. I have tried the creams and stuff but nothing seems to work. Hot flashes come and go but overall that isn't my main issue. I still have paps done every three years - its actually more of the lining of course but you should still be checked for endometrial cancer. The estrogen threat is not just for the ovarian cancer but also breast. It was actually my husband who suggested I talk with my doctor about stopping the estrogen as it was being discussed among the doctors at the cancer center where he works in Radiation Therapy. As I said that was 10 years ago or more. So much depends on your age - I was so young at the time, the hormones were basically a necessity but now I am glad I have stopped them.