Marleah - I also grow all 3 and they are distinct: 1. Crocus Rose is not yellow, it is apricot/buff fading to cream. Like Carrie Jo says, it starts out tight and opens flat, sometimes with a green pointel. It always blooms in clusters. Foliage is small and glossy. Growth upright, never needs staking. 2. Charlotte is medium yellow, very cupped and much more double than Graham Thomas - you never see the stamens on Charlotte. Also, the blooms last much longer on the bush than GT, which in my experience shatter (too) quickly. Growth upright, sometimes long blind shoots which need to be cut back. 3. Teasing Georgia is lighter yellow, fading to cream on the outer petals. Blooms very double and open very flat. Never doesn't need support! Hope this helps! George

I grow a couple of varieties of figs, I grow bananas (and get fruit) I have a couple of types of satsumas, I have meyer lemons, I have moro blood oranges, sweet kumquats, I grow pomegranets, I grow tunas from various types of opuntias, I grow papayas as annuals (get fruit) and last year I grew a few pineapples in containers. I also have a brogdon avocado tree and I am presently looking for both a mexicola and a gainsville avocado (I will produce many more fruit with cross pollination) I also grow maypops, blackberries, blue berries and have grown kiwis. Oh yeah loquats too.

Just to give you another perspective, I'm just across the SC/GA border by about 30 miles or so. I usually always have greens growing from seed scattered in late August or early September. They last through the winter until spring. I had such a wet summer last year that I didn't get any in on time and didn't have any this year. Bummer. My neighbors had some and theirs are all bolting now. I've had snow peas in the ground a month and they're about 3 inches tall now. Took a couple weeks to germinate and pop out. I should have had them in on Valentine's Day or earlier. Weather... I should have beets in the ground now, but my tractor has been in the shop so I'm running late. They can go in mid March here with lettuce and onions and cabbage type transplants. Our average last frost date is early April sometime. I like to wait until after tax day to do any warmer season planting. Last year, I planted sweet corn and some okra in late April and it did well. I also planted more okra later and the earlier planted had larger plants which produced more pods per plant. If you space the seeds for okra by 2 or 3 feet, it gives the plants room to branch and not be a single stalk with pods on it. I had some plants with 5 or 6 branches and a main trunk of 2 or 3 inches diameter at the base. I'll be planting okra again as soon as I can after April 15. Probably drop bush beans, pole beans, squash, and cucumbers at that time as well. Never done pole beans, so looking forward to them. As for pests on okra, I have aphids after the tips where the blossoms were. Because I have aphids, I have ants. I also have to deal with fire ants in the ground, not so much on the plants. Aphids don't get on every single plant. And if they're there, I'll just toss that pod and move to the next one. Ants are more of a bother because I think they're after the blossom leftovers. Occasionally they'll eat into a pod and get inside, but not often. Again, I'll toss those pods and move on. I see stink bugs and leaf footed bugs, but I don't think they do much harm to okra. Okra is so productive. Freezes well. Pickles well. It's expensive at produce stands and farmer's markets, so I try to grow a lot of it and share cheap with folks at work. Sweetpotato slips will be here in mid May and I'll get them right in the ground. They're ready at the end of September. Might sneak one or two before then just to see how they're doing. They keep very well. Hope that wasn't too much for you all at one time. :-)

janie, we are suppossed to be up there thur nov 20 - tue nov 25, assuming my DH's test schedules' comply w/ my vacation plans lol. we need to get up there after Nov 16 but before sometime late dec. to catch all 3 art exhibits i want to see. dh has finals till dec. 12 and we have a cruise from dec 13-18 so i know we won't be there those weeks. i grew up in chicago and have lived in orlando for 10+ yrs now and really miss the mix of modern and old you find in big cities. atlanta has alot of beautiful old buildings and alot of skyscrapers mixed in too. we often pulled off the residential roads to get out and take pics of some of these old houses, there were amazing details to these places. there were some not so good neighborhoods and some very nice ones too but everything seem to blend in well. everyone we encountered was really nice, infact outside of huntsville AL i've never meet so many people who went out of their way w/ southern hospitality! the company i work for is setting up another very large nursery location in Dawson GA and i'm looking forward to seeing that too. maybe even transferring up there between atlanta and dawson someday...i have a co-worker living outside peachtree city right now, we'll see! ~ liz