thanks for such a beautiful picture, jim. you're obviously quite a gardener! i have a few early flowers on my violets and some autumn crocus, cholchicum varieties here. your arrangement reminds me of the introductory page of some old gardening books i have seen....very elegant! rob...

Update: April 09 Well the snow finally melted and things have started growing again! I took a leap of faith and planted the birdsfoot(feet?) from Viola Valley in the sand under the willow tree and they've come back!! I've counted eight-they're hard to spot at first 'cause the leaves start out as a reddish-purple color. The downy violets, also from Viola Valley, I left in pots and put the whole thing in the ground! There were four of them and I see life in a couple of pots so far. The Canadians(from VV) were put in the rose garden and are all fine. The white sweet(VV) were put under the apple tree, I think, the marker came off the tag(damit!) Of the V. striatas that were so generously given to me I have one left-if you decide to bring one in over the winter AND it gets spider mites DON'T spray it!! I did and it promptly died :-( The Clive Groves crosses(also a donation, thanks man!)are doing quite well in the rose garden and are blooming their fool heads off as we speak. From Canyon Creek the Liannes survived, two outside and one in the kitchen window(yes, it has spider mites but doesn't seem to mind!) Mme Armandine Pages,Fair Oaks,Clive Groves, and Alice de Rothschild spent the winter inside with the jasmine tree-Clive and Alice are well, but the cats made short work of Mme Armandine Pages and Fair Oaks is in recovery. Alice Witter and Priceana are under the willow tree, I thought they were dead but I see new growth popping up from around the sides. The marker wore off of their tags so I don't know who is who! That concludes the saga of my violets. -B

That sounds like a good plan. I really wanted the antique shades pansies to put in my boxes for this fall/winter/spring, but it seems only Burpee has them. Unfortunately (or fortunately?) they are the only things I want from Burpee, which makes them less attractive to order for me when I could dump that $$ into something where it goes further (like Well Sweep). By the way, I meant to say that Lianne had a small flower when she arrived. It had no scent though, which makes me wonder a bit. I've never had odoratas, but I was hoping for good things.

thanks ever'body! eric, i just have the lens that came with it, it's a nikkor 18-70mm and the only filter i have is a uv to protect it (eventually i'm going to get a polarizing filter and maybe even a 2nd lens, also, i dream about a macro lens or the macro/telefoto lens like my father has)