Josie, "The picture was this Summer but were all destroyed by the hurricane season." That's too bad. That was a nice looking bunch of zinnias. Remnants of a hurricane made it up here last Summer, but by the time it got to Kansas it was just some heavy rain and high winds of maybe 40mph. This is a picture of part of my zinnia patch this last Summer. As you can see, I use rebars and "zinnia cages" to help hold my zinnias up in storms that have high winds. Sustained winds of 30mph are rather common here. "I replanted a lot of zinnia seeds a month ago and nothing came up..." That's odd. Zinnias are usually quite good about coming up. "Now I will have to wait until February when the stores put out seeds for sale. Down here it is not like the rest of the country where you can find seed most of year." Have you tried buying seeds out of seed catalogs or from online stores? I got my Johnny's Selected Seeds catalog a couple of days ago, and you can also buy directly online. I also buy seeds from Burpee's, Park's, Harris, Stokes, and Hazzard's. Or, if you don't like to do online shopping, you could at least request a free catalog. Most major seed companies now have online seed sales. You get a wider selection that way. Companies like Johnny's have a lot of separate colors of zinnias, including some that are on your wanted list. If you requested a catalog from Johnny's, you could shop for seeds in the comfort of your living room or breakfast table. ZM (not associated with any product or vendor mentioned)

Hi Jeannie, I've been thinking about MAC for a long, long time. It might work in that spot if we were younger here and more able to stay after the rose all the time and if we were willing to let it work on the obelisk without too many horizontal turns requiring much bending. The problem is that MAC isn't very flexible once a cain gets some age on it, and will do its own thing, sort of set in concrete, if you don't keep at it. We'd have to train it frequently to avoid the walk path beside the camellias as well as to keep it from totally taking over the obelisk and choking out the Mortimer Sackler. We're probably not up to that much rose work nowadays, though I do love the rose and want it somewhere where it wouldn't have to share a limited amount of supported climbing space with another rose. I've thought about it more strongly for one or two other spots where its own growth ideas might line up better with ours and not take too much work on our part. The same considerations apply to Lamarque, but the difference in flexibility might be a real difference. Once or twice a year of pulling the rose away from the camellias would probably work for Lamarque, but might come too late for MAC. Both roses are such vigorous growers that they'd be expected to outgrow the obelisk and start to claim other areas by year three. With Lamarque a discreet peg here and there when you get around to doing it might work? With MAC, my thinking is that perhaps you'd better get around to doing it now, or perhaps get handy with a saw later. That said, I still do keep thinking about MAC. What a wonderful rose it is! Thanks for thinking about this, Jeannie. Best wishes, Mary

Yes, there are many plant diseases commonly called blight. See this entry on Wikipedia. With hostas, the disease known as "southern blight" is a fungus named Sclerotium rolfsii. You will need a fungicide which is specifically designed for this particular disease. It needs to contain flutolanil as the active ingredient. You should be able to order both the Scotts Contrast and the Bayer Prostar from a grain elevator or agricultural supply. Both products are rather expensive, but they will go a long ways and should last you several years. These fungicides can be applied every spring as a preventative, especially for those hostas which have been previously effected by the blight. Currently, you can purchase the Bayer Prostar on ebay (click here) and Amazon (click here). Other knowledgeable individuals (including Bill Meyer and Warren Pollock) have had good results with some other fungicides, namely, Terraclor (active ingredient PCNB) and Bayer Advanced Disease Control (active ingredient tebuconazol). You can read Bill's article titled "A Southern Blight Strategy" in the AHS Online Hosta Journal which is posted here. Warren Pollock also wrote an article in the Journal. Let me know if you'd like to read it...I can look it up.

I think you should go a little bit darker than your tile. The grout always dries a lighter shade than the little sample pieces they have at the tile store. I don't understand why the samples show the color that the grout is when it is WET. In reality, the grout will dry to a significantly lighter shade. Also, a darker grout color will show dirt more. Sealing helps, but are you really going to do it regularly? I would choose a color to go with the darker parts of your tile. Also, if you have a lot of floor and the look really matters, buy a little bit of grout and actually use it with four tiles. See the color it dries. Grout is pretty cheap. Smallest size should be under $10.