I've really taken to primulas as they come in such a variety of colous and stem sizes. They also cross breed which also gives excitement because you don't know what will happen. My all time garden favourite is a hypericum hidcote (Hidcote is a very famous English garden in Oxfordshire) - like st John's Wort. I bought it as a garden centre end of season remainder for �1. It was leggy and didn't look much, but I cut it back and put it in. It's now the show piece all Summer. It's grown to avery well rounded four feet bush which I cut back each year. The yellow flowers are huge and last year it kept flowering into November.

pansies dry well too. stick them on wax paper and fold the other side (of the wax paper over it), put into a thick book and let dry for a while. the colors stay too! you got that out of season shopping down pat, maggie! i love to rescue plants people have given up on or just want to get rid of. they sure reward you!

Pansies may dry well everywhere else on earth. They mildew first, here. I have seen some lovely examples of microwave oven drying, though!

and you can use the silica granuals. i've got some of that stuff to dry my roses and try to maintain the color. haven't tried it yet. but you can use the granuals over and over again. i've dried several leaves and lots of pansies. am surprised that the humidity didn't get to them. dry them inside the house though.

Yup! Silica granules do the job, alright. And one MUST dry them indoors here. We have little white innocuous clouds which look around as they drift lazily over the sky. They hjalt abruptly if they see carpets or furniture airing in the sunshine and promptly dump their load.

better to dry them outside here... most people humidify their homes...

Not here! God humidifies everything! A botanist I once met dried his specimens on the pavement or black-top driveway but brought them inside when the sun began to set. That is probably the best way to do it. He used newspapers to absorb excess moistures and changed it daily.

I meant 'here' as in where I am here. In Colorado our humidity in always negligible... cracked lips and cracked, bleeding knuckles are a year-round problem.

Has anyone used a microwave to dry flowers? There was someting on it in one of my basic microwave books.

you can use the microwave, oven, and those expensive dryers. i prefer wax paper and a dictionary. you use the microwave when drying with silica granuals. oh, i hang my roses upside down when drying them. all the rose petals and buds i have in my potpourri vase is from my garden. quite neat, huh? dry knuckles and other parts are a problem for us in the winter but we still have high humidity even then.

I never figured out who was buying all that moisturizer they were selling on TV - until I spent 4 months on the mainland including a week in Denver. This lady was not used to such dessication and itched all over, more than any place else! They had "still rooms" in the old days (Jane Austen features them) where herbs and flowers were all hung upside down from the rafters to dry and to preserve them. I have a recipe for making crystalized violets in your microwave oven. It does very well.

violets? like african violets? or violas?

The little purple ones which grow under the trees in the Northeast in the spring. Not fuzzy like the African variety... Viola odorata are the ones I mean but violas can mean different things in different places. These also can be white but the purple ones are lovely on French Vanilla ice cream!

I still have (dried) the first rose my husband gave me almost 30 years ago - and flowers from my wedding bouquet!

Wow! Mine's only five years old... but I am hoping to keep it for at least another 25 years! (Congratulations by the way!)

The trick is to remember where you put it!!!! Mine are in a 1760s copy of Martin Luthor's table talks, together with a few other bits and pieces I rediscover from time to time.

You are risking an ancient book with dried flowers??? I am sentimental, but love books more!

Well, the flowers were dried before I put them in, and are between layers of tissue, so I'm not going to feel guilty. I haven't noticed any discoloration in more than a quarter of a century!!!! I put the rose in there in the first place because I got the book for my 19th birthday - all from the same person.

Ah! Now you have me. Sentiment of that sort wins every time!

That's me - soft as a chocolate. (I just nicked two of my daughter's Belgian ones - do you get those in Hawaii - Yum!)

after my flowers and leaves dry, i place them in an envelope and leave it unsealed. probably not what i should do, but who's asking? want to use them in some sort of craft project (like glass plates) but haven't had time to do it yet.

I'm not sure about the sealing. Mine seem to have kept OK. But I guess if you use in a craft project like a card, you'd need to seal it with sticky back plastic or something (that's what we call it, I suppose it's got another proper name). what are you going to do with glass plates?

Decoupage glue brushed over them seals them nicely on glass, wood boxes (especially nice) and covers of scrapbooks and such.

Oh, Yes! We get all sorts of decadent things like Belgian Chocolate here, but it does not work for me as well as it does for other women, apparently. Nowhere near as good, actually! But, it does taste delicious - the dark kind, please!

Wolfie, we gotta get the guys to make us that crafts conference since we now have use of our hard drive space...?!

that's what i was thinking..... glass plates with decoupage was what i had in mind......

You will have very lovely plates, in that case! You'll never guess what I was just doing with fabric paint. Painting aluminum rivets on the car black. The Hairy Chest-beater put protective shiny black molding on the four corners of the bumpers and had to rivet them on to keep them on. The aluminum was ugly, so I painted them. I did it on some cast aluminum enamelled tablets on buildings so the fasteners did not show. 5 years on they still look as good as when I did them and none has peeled! I am more than a little amazed.

oh what you can do with fabric paint!

Tell me about it! I have used it on more "other" things than I ever did on fabric! I have changed the color of shoes and whitened old comfortable ones which looked too shabby to wear. Sprinkle glitter on while wet and you have new evening shoes! I could go on and on, and, from your remark, so could you! *lol*

What a place to collect tips!

We gotta save the good stuff for that new Crafts Conference! Otherwise check for my handy hints in http://www.spring.net/yapp-bin/restricted/read/food/55/new

Why in food?

Most of them are kitchen and household hints. When I created it, that is what I had in mind - strictly kitchen stuff.

Oh, so when's the craft thingy coming?

As soon as things settle down from the move to the new ISP and I can talk one of the magicians behind the scenes to create the space for it. Wolf and I can put wallpaper and buttons up and all that sort of thing...We just need them to make create the actual structure onto which we create the thing which will end up as Geo did. I was handed a white blank space and told to go at it. I had no clue then what to do, so I was led through the birthing very patiently and carefully. I learned so much in that first 10-hour tour-de-force of creation. It was an extraordiary experience - at first terrifying and in the end glorious. I have put the conference with the wallpaper and the topics I created there up so I could just sit and admire it. When I sent my son (a geek of sorts) and my PhD ex in to look at it they were amazed that this mere woman could do that. My ex did not know such things were possible, and my son plans to pick my brains for his own we site eventually!

Looking forward to it. I'm off to watch Midsomer murders on TV now. See you tomorrow?

I'll be here, my dear! *Hugs* till then!

I'm back, where are you? BTW the vicar did it and then jumped off the church tower!

Oh No!!! Not the vicar?! The last one you would suspect. It's usually is more proper than the Queen wife who nurses grudges like nobody else...! Did you suspect? I am here!!!

No I didn't suspect until right at the end. He was a famous (British TV) actor too - Richard Briers. I think these are all Ruth Rendall novels, but I don't remember reading that one. You'd have liked the scenery - real olde worlde english village, village fete and all.

Ah, yes. I have been known to watch the British Grand Prix just to look for hillforts and other stuff in the background around Silverstone! Sounds good. Perhaps we will get them for PBS or A&E eventually!

my garden got a little sweeping up on Sunday... I have to keep the dead leaves over the plants, so they don't freeze, but I turned the soil in my veggie garden... preparation for after we return from Alaska.

Oh, dear, I'm still feeling guilty I haven't been out in the garden yet. I did feed the birds this morning though!

My garden is full of errant ferns and begonias which just happen to be growing there. We even have exotic weeds!

Ooo lovely

Mine just has non-exotic weeds and a rockery which I've got to take to pieces and rebuild this summer - oh and a fallen rose arch and trellising which needs replacing. the strawberries are nice in summer though.

I thought your weeds were marvellous. My grandfather (a graduate of Kew) maintained that there was no such thing as a weed. They are just plants out of place. Amen! Maggie, no brambles? My ex convinced me to touch a nettle while we were admiring Old Sarum. It's the last time I did that on purpose! The Romans did that to themselves intentionally! Very odd, indeed! My grandfather would have app;lauded stacey's use of dead leaves for protective blanketing. Lime them and dig them under in the spring and your azaleas will be the best in Colorado!

pickle juice doesn't hurt either.

Pickle juice? Never heard of that! I guess anything you drain off things we eat is good for your plants! hmmm...pickle juice?! *giggle*

Pickle juice?? hmmm... the vinegar is good for plants??

Apparently nettles increase the blood supply to the area hit .......

Oh Maggie! You don't suppose they used them as an aid to stimulate otherwise reluctant protrusions into activity? Sounds too painful to contemplate!

on the pickle juice, it's the acid in the vinegar. azaleas like acidic soil. and i sat in nettles as a kid and boy did those bumps sting. good thing i had on a diaper or training pants or something. i remember oma and mom wiping me with a cold washcloth. i was careful from then on out.

Yup! Once bitten by nettles you tend not try do it again. Pickle juice on your hygrangeas should be great, in that case...depending on whether you want blue or pink flowers when they bloom. Just like litmus paper!

now i can't remember if mine bloomed out pink or blue last year and last year was the first time they had flowers (except when i bought them of course)......

Make every other one a different color?!

I picked up 16 little herbs in plants and they'e in the ground now, I was inspired by my trip to the Zilker botanical garden the other day.

woohoo! i always get inspired when i see a garden show or even make a trip to lowes! in fact, i've got two plants (angel's trumpet and a currant bush) on their way and i don't know where to put them!

Put the currant bush in a bright sunny place and be sure it is well-watered, as well. They love water and sun but mostly they like being in hedgerows, so if you have an edge of the woods place with lots of sun, it would be very happy there! No currants in Hawaii, alas..unless you live up the volcano quite a bit more than I do.

I cultivate a samll nettle patch down the end of the garden (well, cultivate is a euphamism) - for the butterflies.

just don't sit in 'em maggie! *grin*

Is there not a cruetly to butterflies society in Buckinghamshire???!

What one does is "tolerate" the nettle patch designated for the benefit of butterflies, if I recall correctly!

yup. i'm glad we don't have nettles. but poison ivy is known to peak it's ugly head in our manicured lawns *laugh*

Hawaii has no poison ivy/oak. However, when I had a girl scout troop in West Virginia, they chose to make camp in a place to which I had never been. When I arrived, there they were, all rigged and lounging on the ground which was carpeted with the prettiest 3-pointed glossy green leaves. Yup! Right in the poison ivy!!!

oh no! *laugh* what a site you guys must've been!!

Needless to say we had a lively week. Every last one of them became expert in all forms and stages if growth of that pretty vine. Wish I had had the Calamine Lotion concession ...!

I swear by aloe vera these days - and it disappears and doesn't leave you all pink (unlike the nettles). The crocuses are lovely just now, springing up all over the place. There are the beginnings of buds on the shrubs but if we have a hard frost it will damage them.

I have pots of Aloe Vera growing outside my kitchen door. Hawaiians used it in the old days to soothe stomach ulcers. Tastes rather nasty, but it is effective and benign in all ways. Great for sunburn, as well as other skin problems. Makes a great masque if you let it dry stiff then wash it off.

Haven't tried that use of it *smile*

Admire your croci for me (or is it crocusses?!)...I miss early spring when things first peek through the surface. No wonder our ancient forebears used to pour libations on the ground and stomp around and yell pleas to the buried ancestors to push up the new sprouting crops. Makes sense to me!

i've got an aloe in the house, it's not very pretty but when someone burns themselves, i take a piece and rub it on. and i only use 100% aloe gel on sunburns. bulbs are popping up all over. and the weather is so nice outside i just want to plant everything. but it's a bit too early to do too much as we're due another frost at least.

My Aloes are big enough that I just break off a "leaf" and squeeze it like toothpaste. It's pretty concentrated so a little water added will spread it all over the place, and you will be uncatchable until it dries out *grin* I'd think it'd be hazardous to plant bulbs outdoors until March...!

Does anyone have a good way to get rid of slugs? I can gather as many as 200 of them off my yard at a time during a damp morning. So far I have used alcohol in a spray bottle for one or two, but for 200 of them...that is another problem entirely!

salt.....

be careful with it because it will render the ground unplantable. salt will dry them up. you can also bury a tuna can in your garden with beer in it. they'll be attracted to the taste and drown.

I did salt but it is worse than spraying alcohol on them (denatured, naturally at 2/$1 for a pint bottle. ) They lie around and begin to get really "fragrant" when you are dealing with 200 or more of them. Every 30 days there is a new generation, too (or some such horrible frequency) Snail poison works well, but there is the same problem. Fragrance! Beer sounds best...I don't like it much and they do...I'll sacrifice one in their honor...*grin* Thanks!!!

D'ya think snails and slugs know the difference between real and "near" beer?

it's the smell and then they just drown, so i don't think it matters. suppose soda would do the same thing but would definitely bring on the ants!

Yup! Guess NearBeer would do it. I have a can one of our visitors bought and I would like to get rid of it. That seems to be a good way. Don't think soda works, though...not fragrant enough and too sugary. Not what they usually eat. Least, I have never heard that soda works (and I sure don't need more ants!!!)

Egg shells? or grit/shingle round specific plants - doesn't kill them but helps to keep them off. I guess they don't like crawling over it!

The objectionable substrate would work over night, but the grass and plants grow so rapidly in Hawaii that it would soon be overgrown and absorbed into the soil. I know that during the dark of the moon, if you look under big rocks you will find great balls of mating slugs. They are bisexual so they can do each other...frightening! But, it is a great time to get a whole bunch at one time plus the next generation! Too bad they smell bad and are slimy...Uck!

Another sort of snail we have here is the African Giant land snail. The first time you happen on one of these cabbage-sized creatures it is enough to cause serious coronary events. They can eat your garden in no time flat. Parasitic land snails have been imported to combat this plague. I have only seen one. That was quite enough!

definitely would experience a coronary event. as big as cabbages? i'd be afraid to go out!

...and as green as brownish-green as cabbages, too. I though it was a cabbage until I went closer to wonder why it was on a wooden ladder. I shrank back in horror when it unmantled its shell at looked at me with those eyeballs on stalks! You never saw this lady move so fast in another direction...! The shell is quite impressive. They rarely get that big, the Ag Station guys (who were the recipient of this little gem) told us. Thank heaven for that!

see? I was so traumatized by it I have been rendered mistype-ical whenever I try to write about it...sorry!

Those African land snails were an 'in' pet here not long ago. Can't see the attraction myself. Hmmm I can see you have a problem the magnitude of which I had not envisaged!!!!!

Fortuanately, they are not prevalent on this Island - at least not on this side of the Island. I have not seen another since that one 20 years ago...but I am not looking for them, either. Perhaps there are giants lurking in my banana patch?! Trying to kill them with salt or alcohol might just enrage them. Not a pretty thing to contemplate! I have seen empty shells of both the parasitic one imported for control of the giant one, and little Giant snail shells. Something is getting to them when they are still young and manageable. I bet they could consume your garden in a hurry when adult, though!

Pets??!! Eeeeesh!!!

Well, I think I really would prefer one of them to a big hairy spider - and yes, I am going to bed!

G'night Maggie!

i picked up another fuschia today. last years didn't make it through the summer. guess i didn't water it enough. this one has cool flowers. the outer petals are hot pink but the inner petals are deep bluish/purple. very pretty! i sure hope it makes it through. now the rest of the garden. i've planted four mini roses in the backyard, along with my currant bush, red climbing rose, some tuberoses, and a couple of bleeding hearts. out front, the irises have blooms bursting but not blooming out yet. the roses are blooming and i still have some hyacinths coming up. very pretty and such a lovely smell. the gardenia isn't supposed to do well where it is but she is just going to town. the hydrangeas are making a complete comeback from being dormant as well as the hostas. everything is bursting green and looks great against the cypress mulch we laid out today. i love spring!

Your fuschias sound beautiful..they grow here with the tree ferns at the summit of Kilauea where the rain forest is. Gorgeous and hearty they grow pretty tall and have the loviliest-colored flowers. Your gardenias seem to be right at home in your humidity. They love plenty of water and good drainage. and semi sun which you have discovered if yours are doing that well. Roses still hate it here unless you have a green house.

I've got some mint I want to put in today, I guess it needs some shade and lots of water.

the gardenia thrives in full summer sun. amazing. guess she got used to it while putting her roots deep. funny about how shrubbery takes a couple of years to establish and then all of a sudden, whooosh, the branches take off.

My lilac bushes are budding wildly now. I wonder how many flowers we'll have this year. I love the smell of them. All the spring bulbs are flowering and the primulars are looking bright and cheerful. Spring has definitely arrived!

love lilac and wisteria. did you know that wisteria doesn't bloom until it's at least 10 years old? so when you buy, ensure you get older stock so you won't have to wait too long. better yet, buy them while they're blooming in the nursery so you'll be sure to get one old enough! almost bought one yesterday but the AM wants us to wait.

a neighbour has wisteria growing over his shed. I'm quite envious. There's a village i drive through on my way to Uni which is very old and several of the houses are covered in very old wisteria which runs along them about six or eight feet from the ground. The trunks are huge, maybe 8 inches diameter. It's truly spectacular in season. My lilacs are supposed to be dwarf ones. I had them for mothers day about 7 years ago. But they have never flowered very well. I took them out of the pots a couple of years ago becuase I thought that might have been the problem. Anyway, we'll see how they do this year. One, which i pruned back hard last year is sprouting very well, and I'm hopeful.

do keep us posted. i planted a lilac several years ago and it didn't amount to anything.

Please do keep the mint in the semi shade if not all shade and make sure it keeps damp or gets sprinkled in the morning and evening until it gets established. You'll love it! I love lilacs and my Dad planted one outside my bedroom window when I went to college. I never saw it bloom! They do not grow out here but Chinaberry does and smells quite like them.