What style is your house, and what direction is your hedge? The old fashioned 'Annabelle' hydrangea is very hardy, the blooms turn from green to white to brown. 'Pee Wee' oakleaf hydrangeas have four seasons of interest, with their peely bark, but require a little more water. Clethra alnifolia 'Hummingbird' is a great plant, and has a pretty fragrance when in bloom. But these all have white blooms. For really long bloom time, and COLOR, nothing beats the Knockout roses, they're also tolerate some shade. I have the single pink ones in a west-facing bed, which gets full sun until the afternoon when they're shaded by the house, and then they get the setting sun.

Thank you so much Trudi. I will buy that kind and winter sow it next month. Tina

We have a 4mth old puppy (Foodle). We both work 1hr from home and cannot come home to attend to Burt during the day. He is has full run of our garage which is an internal access garage, fully insulted (we live in New Zealand) and has all his toys, bed, water etc to keep him occupied and safe. We have a young girl who comes by twice a day to take him outside for walks and to feed him his lunch (he's still getting fed 3x times a day). She does this 3 days a week and the other 2 days he goes to doggie day care (which is loves so much he never wants to leave!). We also have a webcam in our garage which provides live streaming, so we can see him. I can assure everyone that most of the time he either plays with his toys or sleeps. We believe we have done the very best for our wee pup to ensure that he is not cooped up all day and that he gets good socialisation with other dogs, and because of this he is the most well behaved, adorable, loving family member. We would love to spend all day with him if we could, but we think we have provided the best arrangement for him and us. I would recommend for those that worry about your dog being stuck home all day, to invest in someone to drop around at least once a day to walk and play with him/her. A small amount of $$ to give you peace of mind and for your doggo to have some outside play time, is worth it.

Looking for the one perfect onion, huh? :-) Seriously, what is your primary goal? Flavor? Only non-sweet? Bulb size? Saving seeds while still having edible onions? Experimentation and pushing the envelope? Etc.? There are easy answers for each one of those but sadly there is no one perfect onion variety that could even come close to perfect for all those goals. Don't we wish! Seed saving for onions is a total waste of time IMO simply because the seeds have such a short life span/viability without expensive ideal storage conditions and even then it is still short. Plus, even when viable, yes there are health, sterility, and production issues with F1 seeds unless they are crossed under ideal conditions. Flavor is as much a product of the growing conditions you provide - soil pH, consistent soil moisture levels, consistent nutrient levels, spacing, planting/harvesting date, proper planting depth (bulbs form above ground), etc. - as it is of the variety. So be sure to re-evaluate all those factors too. Bulb size is exclusively a result of growing the proper day length so unless we want to move or invest in high pressure floodlights, we are stuck (so to speak). But we can make some trade offs - accept smaller bulbs to grow some of the long-day varieties (just grow more of them), change planting dates drastically and protect if necessary, and do everything we can to insure proper growing conditions soil and water wise. Several have mentioned all the great info available at Dixondale Farms in Carrizo Springs, Texas so if you haven't explored all the info they offer please do so. Dave