Throw those babies (seeds) out the door where you want them to grow. I have had mine since the first year that I joined gardenweb. The first year, I ws them and from then on I have been pulling up tons of sprouts every spring. I have potted them up for swaps, sent seeds to anyone who asked and they have all grown for them. PVick, this is your year...keep em moist! cAROl and Tomva can attest to that! I have to say that mine are planted in a very wet area even though they say thay like it dry. They were over seven feet tall last year! I still have some seeds, anyone? Lisa

Lenette, I top dressed the pot with compost and time release fertilizer this spring and have been giving them the same weekly miracle grow or bloom booster as the brugs and once a month epsom salts. They are doing really good this year. They must have liked the conditions in the garage over the winter, lol. My sister's plants all look so good and one of her brugs I gave her is blooming. It has been raining most afternoons here and she waters too, lol. I am going to take out a loan and get a sprinkler system, lol. Just kidding I wish I could. I told her I wasn't even thinking about the yard being in the pics and that my grass was brown and crunchy and she laughed. Hubby has been trying to revive it and all he is doing is making mud and running up my water bill, lol. I think I will give up on it and try to reseed it later. It was already pretty weedy and this drought has done it in even with watering. THe whole neighborhood looks like that except the people who have an inground sprinkler system and my next door neighbor and his manual sprinklers run day and night no lie. He just moved them around every couple of hours, lol. Well I can't get to my nephews tomorrow to take cuttings. He is out of town and the gate is locked so hopefully I will score in New Orleans or I will have to take cuttings from the business landscaping and get arrested, lol. Lots of blooms going on everywhere in Baton Rouge.

Patty, That is probably true, but I know that some of them come in the gate because they will even do it when I am in the garden! LOL In fact, one will come in through the gate and look anxiously around, and then another and then another, like the first one is the lookout for the others. I walk a really fine line between trying to feed them enough that they survive the winters (and also VERY harsh drought conditions like we had here in 2005) and, yet, keeping them out of the garden, which they obviously believe is theirs as much as it is ours. We live in an area with abundant wildlife and have had every critter you can imagine from coyotes and bobcats to ring-tailed cats, tons of venomous and non-venomous snakes, possums, armadillos, gazillions of raccoons, etc. If my garden wasn't fenced, we'd have no garden! This year's deer problems have been the worst, which is why we expanded the fence to 7' tall a couple of weeks ago. It IS basically working, but if I do stupid things like leaving it open, the critters will find the open gate and come in. Sometimes, early in the morning, the turtles are standing AT the gate, waiting for me to come and open it. (Around here, every day is like being either at the circus or the zoo, but it is never dull.) I let the turtles roam around the garden because they can't do much damage other than maybe chewing on a tomato or two that is low to the ground. The turtles "reward" me by digging shallow depressions in my flower beds and laying their eggs there. Thus, we get to enjoy seeing their babies hatch and make their way to the pond. (They never lay eggs in the veggie garden though.) What I really want to know is WHY the deer come up to the house and look into the windows! Are they looking to see if we are home? If they see we are gone, do they say "the coast is clear!" and start eating the shrubs? Are they thinking of breaking in and raiding the kitchen pantry? Living surrounded by wildlife is very interesting to say the least. Oh, and there ARE easy explanations for why the deer population is worse. To our west, Lattimore Sand and Materials has been clearing several hundred acres they bought alongside the Red River to mine sand. That clearing has sent tons of wildlife onto the properties of those of us who live here close to the river. And, several miles to our south, to the south of Thackerville, the WinStar Casino and surrounding development are driving wildlife out of that area and towards us. So, the wild things have to go "somewhere", don't they? Since we have food and abundant water (3 ponds, a creek, a swamp, and several springs), they like it here. I wouldn't mind having them here if I could train them to eat the ragweed and Johnson Grass! Dawn

I won't be able to come. We will be in Oregon that weekend. I was hoping we would be leaving the following Sun or Mon, then I could come, but we're leaving on the 12th.