Carla of Sacremento, I despise your states capitol. An endless sprawl of franchise stores- you can barely find a restaurant or business of any kind that actually represents any individual creativity. The archetecture of the last 40 years is the ugliest most depressing cancer existing on the the face of this planet- from your ticky tack homes to your businesses. As far as the weather, how can any true gardener stand a climate that provides no moisture during the growing season and seems to be in almost perpetual drought. Most of the time the landscapes look like the plants are being tortured for lack of water. And Sacramento weather isn't even very warm in the winter- very exposed to winds so when it's freezing it feels like zero. I was raised near Malibu CA and am happy to be in the muggy northeast, where spring is an explosion of life and the flora thrive in an emerald paradise and the senses get to expereince true seasons. Do not pitty the rest of us. (actually I love CA- at least the not man-made part, and my northeast as well, but gloating gets my gander up)

I've also got about 30 four-inch tall maximums I started from seed this spring - Sift finely ground pine bark through a kitchen sieve with a wider mesh, and mix it 1:1 with moist loose peat moss. Wet it well, and microwave it for 5 minutes (!), let it cool, and put it into a 2-inch deep high-dome propagator; I've got a few smaller ones that I bought off of Greenhouse Megastore, which have worked exceptionally well. Spread the seed out evenly over this, and mist with distilled or reverse osmosis wate, and set the tray under a fluorescent light fixture, timed for 16 hours. Seedlings will germinate quite readily (My seed was from 1996!), and grow slowly. After the cotyledons expand, sift a very thin layer of pine bark over the seedlings - Just enough to fill in between the seedlings, NOT completely cover them - so they don't fall over when you mist them. After two or three true leaves have formed, mist them once per week with a low-nitrogen, high-phosphorus fertilizer; soluble tomato fertilizer works very well. After the first few leaves have fully expanded, prick them out into individual 2-1/4" liner pots, using a mix of 1/4" or less pine bark mulch and moist loose peat moss, at a ratio of 3:1 respectively. Mix Osmocote 18-6-12 into the soil at about 3 lbs per cubic yard, as well as Micromax at about 1.5 lbs per cubic yard. (There are about 7 gallons in a cubic foot and 27 cubic feet in a yard, should be able to work the math backwards from that). If you start them in January, they should be ready to transplant in March. Give them about 1/8 teaspoon of 3-4 month release Osmocote in June, and they will be nice little seedlings with a good, healthy bud by October. I have actually had success planting these the same year in the ground - You'll lose a few, but the remaining ones will definitely be tough! As they bud out in the spring, you'll want to pinch off the main terminal (as painful as that sounds), forcing the plant to put out multiple shoots. Do this every year for the first 5 years or so, and you'll have a really full, well-branched Rhododendron! I also give the plants 2 tablespoons of hollytone in the spring, maybe up to 1/8 cup in 2 applications once they've been in the ground 2 seasons, since our high rainfall leaches the soil of nutrients pretty quickly. They respond really well with this! The same method can be used for native azaleas, as well - I've got a lot of Rhododendron calendulaceum, R. arborescens and R. prinophyllum seedlings this year using the same tricks. Our native soil is a loamy to gravelly clay that ranges from about 5.8-6.5 PH, hollytone keeps the soil within the range that Rhododendrons like, especially if the plants are mulched with pine bark.

Plant adaptations are amazing. Here in upstate New York, the plants sort of die back in the heat of summer after initial seed production, then put out fresh growth in fall with the cooler weather. Our winter kills them. I think the taproot helps the plant get water in drought in the desert. Here, the plants get enough water and have shorter tap roots which makes them wilt during a drought. I don't know that I would trust the article about California poppies being perennial in the Yolo County News website. Maybe it's true. Half of the web articles say they're perennial and half say they're annual. I watch them grow in late winter in Arizona. They are Mexican goldpoppies, a close relative. I've never seen a perennial poppy there. As the research study said, maybe the poppies in the 2 areas studied, came from two different populations. In any case, they are my favorite wildflower. I always buy a packet each year, just in case, but never had to use them in my garden. I can't wait to see those little seedlings...maybe this week! Enjoy!

I've been obsessing over Arctic Blue since I got the catalogue. I thought the comparison to Palatine's Le Petite Prince was curious, checked it out, and Le Petite Prince is Arctic Ice. So maybe there is hope that Arctic Blue will be a z5 survivor :) I am especially hopeful since I see Blue for You in its parentage. Blue for You has been a rock star for me in terms of hardiness, vigor, and black spot resistance. I see a lot of magenta in the photos of Celestial Night. Everything is much pinker for me than advertised. Might be my soil. Ebb tide was pink for me. Lovely, but never purple. So I'm betting that CN's "mystical shade of deep plum purple" will be, alas, sorta dark pink. Life's Little Pleasure's is calling me too! Even though I realize their statement "Those on the West Coast may get the most enjoyment out of Life's Little Pleasures" translates to: "Will blackspot and completely defoliate in New England, even with spray." Still, I'm a glutton for punishment when it comes to mauve.