Hi Patty, Looks like you have not been here in a long time.  Hope all is well and you have your garden making progress since the move to GA.

Hope everything is well. How's the garden? I hope to tear out the jungle that is my back yard and begin to plant native shrubs soon. Hope you are settled in. School has started for me again and I am also back into school gardening. I have volunteers from Emory coming to help maintain our nature trail soon. Love to hear from you.

Hi Patty,

Was wondering if you are settled in yet? Are you adjusting to GA? Have you had much time to do any gardening here yet? Hope you are finding your way around the area. Its always a challange to learn a new area. Hope you are doing well.

Hi Patty,

I get a rare visit from a hummer at my 20-year-old hardy fuschia. He takes a sip from one or two blossoms and then skeedaddles. I’ve only seen him twice this season. Maybe I’ll try again at dusk (if I remember).

My wife and I went down to Carson City, Nevada for a week and then over to the East Bay area (Union City) in California and then drove back home this past Saturday and Sunday.

Normally, we'd have a windshield and grille full of dead butterflies, bees, and other flying insects. Not so, this last trip. Only a couple of hits. I'm wondering if it's climate change, or pollution, or???

I'll try the sponge idea. There are several semi-sunny spots in my yard where it might work.

Congrats on finding a place in Georgia. My oldest daughter is presently in Atlanta (at Emory) working on graduate stuff and she'll finish and come back to the Pacific NW in August.

Will you be able to take any butterfly-attracting plants with you when you move?

Good luck on your upcoming move!

Harry

Just checking in. How is your new garden doing?

I have an herb/butterfly/hummingbird garden that I really need to put pictures of on this site. I plant all of that stuff in the fall. I also plant any landscaping shrubbery I want to add in the fall. Right now, I am pulling the invasive stuff out of my backyard to turn it into a native planting that will attract more wildlife. I plan to plant all of that stuff in the fall. Actually, the best time to plant perennials is in the fall to give them the winter die back to grow roots before the spring bloom. Yes, they will die back with the freeze, but they will return in March!!! Try pineapple sage, native honeysuckle (not the Japanese kind. It is horribly invasive, even though it does smell wonderful.) monarda to attract hummers. Try bronze fennel, rue, parsley, cassia and asclepias currassavica to provide larval food for local butterflies. Ecninacea, rudbeckia, native asters are great for attracting butterflies. All of this stuff can be planted in the fall and will come back in the spring,. At least it has in my garden for years. I'm really not a great gardener. Most of my stuff survives on neglect. If I can grow it, it's a survivor!!!!!!1

Patty, I agree with Patricia. At least wait until the fall for the cool to plant perennials. That way, they have the cool weather to establish roots for the Georgia drought and heat which I'm sure are not over for long,

Patty.....I would wait until spring if I were you. We are having this awful hot weather and things just don't do well in the heat as they do in spring.