Ellie....You C r A c K me up! You silly, silly girl, like I would tell you where I'm puttin em? HA Hidden Cameras are costly....LOL! ACTUALLY I REALLY AM THINKING ABOUT MOVING THE IRIS! I'll probably have a lot of them to sell this season and would be a good time to move them, but then I have hundreds of new ones I'll probably be too busy potting them and making all the crosses I want to while working FULL TIME! I think you know I'M NOT WONDER WOMAN! We'll just have to wait and see how the season goes for me! DOT....You need to email me and let me know about your trip! CHRIS.....I should be able to work on my trade list soon I hope! Got yours...haven't had the time to look as I'm trying to get caught up on a LOT of things after all the stuff going on around this neck of the woods! Nancy Here are some photos of some of my auction purchases coming this spring: GAYLE PALMER HENRY LORRAIN MANDIBA MAGIC NORTHERN KINGFISHER UMBRELLAS OF CHERBORG

Thanks for the advice. Brute I will look into the compost but have run into problems like zakey describes, up North. Main problem was weed seeds and chemically treated greens. Our town, in NY would also collect horse manure from the neighboring stables and compost that separately. We would help ourselves to that each Spring. We also try to grow mostly organically. We were successful in NY and our soil was beautiful from years of composting. Florida seems another story. The soil on the Key is pure sand and I can see will take years to build up a thick layer of organic material. There is less rain and everything dries so fast in the heat. On Siesta, the wind blows off the water constantly which also dries out the soil and compost pile. Add to this, the plant material seems very tough and difficult to break down. Zackey, I would love to live on Siesta but prices here are above what we could afford. We are thankful our daughter and husband own a house here and we can stay until we find a place for ourselves. I'm practicing my gardening skills while staying here and have a lot to learn. Water is expensive to use. I would use rain barrels when I find a house. Sunlight is so much stronger than what I am accustomed to. Bugs are plentiful and have done a lot of damage to some of my houseplants. I have always had success using my homemade oil/soap sprays but these bugs seem to enjoy it. I posted a question above about moving my plants back inside as I am afraid of bringing bugs in the house. I am still terrified of Palmettos, but we seem to have won the battle inside the house. Haven't seen one in a month. The organic pest control seems to have worked. But, outside is another story. I see them at night on the patio and near the house. I do not venture outside at night. When we get a house, I would prefer to stay away from lawns. That will limit a large amount of greens for composting. If there is a lawn, I will collect the clippings for compost - even the grass here seems tough compared to the soft grasses up North. Sorry for the long response, so much to learn! Jane

What I remember most about San Antonio was sitting on my balcony one night ... it was 2 AM ... and the temp was 102. That wasn't unusual. Humidity was worse than Tulsa or Atlanta. Anybody that lives for any time in SA (and other areas too, I'm sure) understands why siesta's came into being. I'd go to a walking track at night ... but not before 11 PM ... and it was always packed until 2 or 3 in the morning. I will be putting my brugs in the ground this year. Didn't have time to do anything with my yard last year so didn't even try. Wanted time to get a feel for the place (I have 2/3 of an acre) and think about what made sense. The conclusions I came to were to do raised veggie beds, get rid of all the shrubs, crepe myrtles and miscellaneous junk trees the couple that had owned it for 42 years had planted and replace with fruit trees, move the patio from the west side of the house to the south side under a large pecan tree (and install it properly this time LOL), get a Bobcat and slope the area around the house itself so rain would go away instead of puddle around the foundation. It got so bad last spring it actually ran under the house through the crawl space vents. The west side of the house they put in two poorly installed goldfish ponds. One I got rid of last year, the other goes this year ... especially since the pump gave out this fall and I checked the cost of a replacement. Location of the pond is also bad ... hell, the placement of everything on the west side of the house is bad ... which is why most is already gone. I'm going to build a pergola from the door leading out of the garage down the length of the house on the west. It has no shade what-so-ever and just gets blasted in the summer. Going to plant vines on it for shade. Can't do trees, even fast grown trees, as all the sewer pipes are in that area and tree roots and sewer pipes just don't mix. I also have to remodel the house itself ... literally everything. Sigh ... I should be done sometime before I hit retirement. brian

Bill, 6b isnt too bad, the data they collected included the major freezes of the 1980's so that probably lowered your zone from a 7a to a 6b. But winters like this year is what kind of evens things out a little bit since it has been a very mild winter! We got down to 13F here which actually is considered a pretty normal lowest temperature for the average mild winter, but the duration of warm weather this winter is something I haven't seen here in many years. I think that if you get colder than your zone more than 2 times in a decade, then you shouldn't be classified in that zone. After looking at NYC records, its clear that it does actually fit that definition as a zone 7b which I thought was suprising. And as for Miami, the city center definitely wont go below 35F so its a solid 10b. The more rural areas outside the city did get a freeze during that bitter 2010 cold spell, but the coastal areas of Miami only went down to the mid 30s. Florida seems like it got a bit colder with this new zone map, one of a few places that showed cooling with this zone map. But the major cities of Southeast Florida (Fort Lauderdale down to Miami and points south) is all a zone 10b now and in the 1990 map, only Miami was in a small pocket of zone 10b. No Problem Joey! Randy, I always thought that the USDA zone map should be taken as just a guide. It gives people a good idea of what kind of climate they have, and I think the zone maps are really intended for those gardeners that dont really know a lot about their climate. Gardeners like all of us are aware that the zones dont tell even half the story. Minimal temperatures during the winter are probably the most important factor for most plant's survival, especially in temperate climates, but its not the only factor. And once you get past zone 9a, I think that the duration of heat and freezes is a lot more important than minimal temperatures. Its the same reason why a zone 10b in Miami can grow a ton more tropicals than a zone 11 in Malibu! And a zone 7b in New York and a zone 7b in North Carolina are 2 totally different climates. You wont see live oaks and spanish moss lining streets here in NYC, but you might see something like that in a zone 7b in the southern states. And It seems to me like some areas are a bit more detailed than others with this map. I see a lot of detail from this map in my area, but Northern Florida and Georgia dont have as much detail it seems. For example, I would definitely consider Savannah Georgia and all of Coastal Georgia a zone 9a, but on this map about half of Georgia's coastline including Savannah is only a zone 8b. And I think that some of the more rural parts of Northern Florida are a bit too warm on this map. -Alex