Love love LOVE it! Thanks for sharing Sandi!

Hi Carey. We had a Mexican dinner for garden club mtg last night. I had 20 old green bottles that I used for flowers for the tables. I cut salvias, different shrimp plants, and mistflowers from my garden for the bottles. When it was over, I told everyone to take whatever they wanted from the bottles, that they could easily root most of them. Very few pieces were left. Was a nice evening.

Great Idea!

Yes it was, Anna. One of our garden club members had an opening at a gallery tonight. On the table by some of her ceramic pieces, was a vase of unmistakeable flowers from the bottles from our meeting the night before!!!! I was tickled!

Those flowers get to go places! Speaking of cuttings, is batface cuphea easy to root? I try every year and fail. Any tips to success?

I've only been successful by "pinning" a stem to the ground and letting it root. After this drought, I'm not one to give advice of anything about growing plants. I went back to 2009 looking for photos of some plants and I was heart sick looking at pics of what the garden used to look like.

too bad. I also have a bag of markers from plants that didn't make it over the years. Are you moving away from your tropical plantings?
Now I don't feel bad about cuphea failure knowing you have trouble too. It is one plant I don't mind mind shelling out $ for each year.

You know, mine dies back every winter and I think I've finally lost it. Then around June, up it pops again. It's in that little bed by the driveway that gets very little water.
And yes, I'm re-thinking all the tropicals. I could say it's because I want to conserve water, but I really want to be able to leave the house for a few days and not have to worry about all those pots. Surprisingly, the best performers this summer were the plumerias. The ones in ground didn't need copious amounts of water, took full sun, and bloomed beautifully.

Bat faced cuphea

Ah, yes...I have quite a few used labels/markers. Some from the seeds that didn't come up, others from the plants that died. Like little plant cemetary markers...they mock me!

Sandi, I'm sure it was beautiful!

Since I started using the rainwater again, you should see my one surviving brug. Of course, I'm going to have to defoliate now because it's covered with spider mites. :/

I know what you mean. I have battled spide mites all summer. I have some of them in quarantine so the mites don't jump to the healthy ones. I used the Bayer's 3-in-1 on all of them. It helped for a while. I think the oppressive heat just got to them. I have buds on nearly all of my brugs. I hope we have a few more weeks before we get hit with a cold snap.

If you get a chance, read my article about visiting Gordon's roof top garden in NYC this summer. It just appeared tonight.

Happy Thanksgiving all. I just had a roll fight with my 6 yr old grandson after dinner!

DGS had a Lego toy to put together on the floor, while his dad and granddad were watching the football game.
While DD and I were still sitting at the table, I picked up a roll and beamed the DGS on top of his head across the room. Of the 8 rolls we started with, we can only account for 3. When our grandson remembers dinner at our house this year, I don't think he'll remember what we ate, but how much fun he had hitting Bubbles with rolls. We did have fun!!!!

That is fun! We had a spaghetti fight one Christmas involving our dog. It didn't become a tradition, but I am thinking yours might.

It was fun, but it was 3 against 1. His parents and Papa kept him supplied.
Rolls are a lot easier to clean up than spaghetti!!

We have a new granddog. He's a rescue dog...or a reject dog...depending upon who's talking about him. He was in training to be a drug dog. He knows all the commands, behaves perfectly, and can sniff out any narcotics. He just wouldn't bring them back to his trainer!

Hey...almost perfect is pretty close! But I guess they wouldn't like the drug dog to keep the drugs. Congrats on your new dog!

He is sweet, and he seems to love DGS.

Bubbles
Congratulations on all the awards you won last night.

Thanks greenman. Great to see you posting over here.

greenman12 said:Bubbles
Congratulations on all the awards you won last night.

What award? I know you are fabulous so I guess others think so too!