Hey, I've got a Bluebird pair nesting in my backyard this year, and they aren't following the "rules" either. One - My back yard could be described at best as an "open woodland" with numerous large canopy trees, plenty of evergreens, shrubbery, and tangled thickets, intermixed with some lawn, gardens, and a couple overgrown meadow/weedy areas. A very mixed habitat. While numerous Bluebirds visit daily during the winter to eat the home-made peanut butter suet, they usually disperse by Spring and I never in a million years expected any to nest here. On the plus side, the next door neighbor has a large lawn he mows and there is a meadow across the street, so they probably hunt there, but I often observe them perching and hunting in my yard too. Two - Even though I rushed to put up a traditional Bluebird nestbox mounted on a pole w/baffle, the Bluebirds have chosen to nest in NATURAL CAVITIES in the dead pine snags in my back yard. They have had 2 broods and chose 2 different natural cavities for each brood, while ignoring the nest box. One cavity was about 20 feet up, one about 10 feet up. Guess they didn't read about safety rules, proper hole size, and predator guards. :) I am very excited because their 2nd brood fledged about a week ago, they disappeared for awhile, and today Mr. and Mrs. Blue showed up to repeatedly retrieve some suet nuggets and fly off to the large Pin Oak in the front yard where I'm guessing the fledglings were hanging out! (Also heard some cries coming from the tree.) Momma Blue peeking out from her first nesting cavity -

Kay, how are you? I haven't been around for a while, I had to take a break and get myself together. To everyone I want to tell you that I am so sorry for your loss and sadness, it is the worst pain anyone can have BUT it does get better, I promise. My heart and soul mate died 14 months ago and I wanted to die with him, I was in so much pain and so scared of what was going to happen to me without him; life must go on. I was told that it doesn't get better but it gets different and they were right. I still weep and some days are bad but I have more good days as time goes on. Life won't seem so alien after a while, I just felt like I didn't belong here any more, not in my home, my job or this world but I did finally settle with my feet back on the ground. It's not easy but you have to push youself to live and it eventually gets easier. Please take care of yourselves, get help if you need it and work hard at being strong, we will never forget and we will always love them and happier days are ahead. God Bless all, Mav.

Image by: wintersown That's okay, don't worry too much about that. Experience is a great teacher and we all learn as we go along. I personally don't know the botanical name of lots of my plants. When I first started gardening and trading I actually didn't know the common name of most of my plants ;-) But I still felt comfortable about trading my seeds because I put a good description of them on the packets. I trade my seeds and if I don't know their name I make as good a description as I can in my posted trade offerings so there's no confusion. I feel confident when I make a well described seed trade....the other trader knows the plant description and they trade for my seeds knowing that I have done my best to decribe what I'm offering. It's fair that way. New traders are often new gardeners too and so they haven't had enough experience with plant names to accurately name the plant they gathered seeds from. What information should I put on the packets? I always put the following information on my packets: Common Plant Name and/or Botanical Name Flower color or "mixed" Height at maturity Sunlight requirements: full sun, part shade, or shade (fs, ps, or shade, or sometimes fs-ps which means full sun to part shade, or ps-shade, which means part shade to shade) A, P, or B (annual, perennial, or biennial) My email address (optional) My name (optional) ======================================================== My trader didn't put all the information on the packet that I thought should be on it....what should I do? Email your trader asap and politely ask for specifics....sometimes a trader can't offer them as they're sharing/trading the excess of a humongous pack of seeds that came their way and IT wasn't labeled with specifics. If you've got a packet that's not labeled with specifics grow it anyway. A packet that says something as simple as just "marigolds" is often a joy to grow. WHY? Well...you know it's an annual, marigolds love full sun. So put the seedlings where they'll get full sun. But I don't know the height.... Plant it in the middle of the border or up front. If they grow tall then you'll have added "dramatic depth" to your garden and reduced the monotony of everything short being up front. A brilliant patch of tallish flowers at the front of the border is often fascinating and is NEVER boring. But I don't know the color..... Marigolds can be yellow/gold, orange or mahogany red. These are the choices....sometimes they have a blend of those colors on the same flowers, or it might be a pack of mixed single colors. What I'm trying to say is that suprises are part of gardening and that you should celebrate the beauty of your plants even if they aren't what you expected. A garden is for relaxing and enjoying. It's NOT for causing frustrations....expect an occasional suprise and you'll be very happy in your garden. ========================================================= Flower Colors...I'm putting in this list as a help in labeling seed packets....no one is perfect in their eyesight so being "close" is just as acceptable as being "accurate". (This color list came from the "Field Book of American Wild Flowers by F. Schuyler Matthews, 1902) Pure yellow Deep yellow Golden yellow Pure orange Scarlet Pure red Pure pink Crimson Crimson-pink Magenta Magenta-pink Pure purple Violet Blue-violet Ultramarine Pure blue Madder purple Madder brown

I love making soil. I love it even more when someone else is doing most of the work for me. I'm itching to start some spring planting in my tiny garden, but it's technically still a bit early (our last frost date is supposed to be around the 18th or so, but these days who even knows) and I'm impatiently waiting for the contractors to show up and replace my rotted fence before I can do any planting in the back half where the pile of rock mulch over weed cloth used to be. The fence would have rotted anyway, but the bottom of it was completely eaten away where the rock mulch was piled against it. I have already put down a tiny new tree (Amelanchier x "Autumn Brilliance") which arrived bare root and needed to go in the ground ASAP, but it's not next to the fence, so it should be fine as long as the fence guys don't step on the 18 inch high forked stick which, seen with my eye of faith, is already a handsome small patio tree. The tree went in the spot where the old, scrawny, unhealthy cherry plum used to be, where I have been piling vermicompost and leaves ever since last summer. I didn't amend the planting hole at all - just dug and filled in. Enough leaf mold and vermicompost just fell into the hole to make me feel fine about the start my new tree's roots are getting. Anyway, the "someone else" who is working for me outside is a healthy passel of earthworms, which I can see out there every time I pull back last autumn's leaf mulch, which I diligently collected from the sidewalk in front of my row house and brought out back. Even if I can't set to work yet, I like knowing that they're hard at it. I've seen some of my red wigglers who rode out from my indoor worm bin, and at least three separate species of native earthworms: slow gray short guys, some really huge red nightcrawler types, and a longer, thinner, super-active wiggly worm that's new to me. I've also scattered out some seeds and grains for the sparrows and squirrels, inspired by some videos of composting chickens I've watched on Youtube: so there's been lots of pecking and scratching and digging going on in the layer of leaves, which is both fun to watch and will serve to further shred down the leaves for incorporation in the soil. When I do get to the planting along the back fence, I'll try to remember to post a soil pic as a "before and after" to the one at the start of this topic.