Spring & Summer 2006
			The spring of 2006 was the first true Spring in many years. Up until the end of May, the day time temps were in the 70’s and the night time temps in the low to mid 60’s. We also had an extraordinarily warm winter as well. Because of this, my Winter Sowing for this year was an utter disaster.
			I call this my Morning Glory Spring. I only had two growing in the greenhouse but they put on quite a show.
	Blue Picotee					Mini-Bar Rose
			And then there was the Messenger Saga with the Blue Picotee. Everyone was raving about a new product called Messenger for plants how it made everything grow bigger and faster, so I bought some and sprayed it on my Blue Picotee, which had a bud that would open the next morning. The next morning when I walked into the greenhouse I was greeted with this.
			For the next few weeks things got stranger and stranger. The Messenger sprayed Blue Picotee started producing more strange flowers and crazy color shifts. Things finally got back to normal after a month.
			In desperation to save some of the genes of the deformed flower I crossed it with a Mini Bar Rose. Only 1 took and I got 3 seeds which I planted immediately. The flower has the shape and barring of the Mini and the color of the Picotee though much darker.
			The Brugmansia so far, have been a disappointment this year. I had more excitement with the buds than the flowers. Come September I’m sure things will pick up.
			This year was my first for Daylilies. All of them were gotten with trades.
			The canna are doing very well this year .. they don’t seem to mind the heat.
			Another disappointment was the Black Currant Swirl Datura. They are pretty, but not nearly as dramatic as the double whites I had last year.
			My Rain Lilies I started from seed 2 years ago never bloomed in their pot .. I finally said to heck with it and planted the bulbs around my yard. They started blooming then.
			One of my best surprises of the year was my Franklin Tree. It started budding and the flowers are opening! It’s easy to understand why it’s nickname is “the lost camellia”.
			And of course there are critters around .. some old friends and others new.
			This year has been the best year in my garden so far, mainly because things are maturing and it is finally taking shape!
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