Let my KVD out to pee and he was absolutely transfixed on this spot. I thought there was a rabbit or squirrel in the bushes, but was surprised to find a little robin fledgling! The mother was nearby chirping from a tree.

I know a lot of Jindos and KVDs have pretty high prey drives, but my boy is so sweet and gentle (albeit curious lol.) He wanted to keep staring at it. I took him inside after this video and the baby hopped off as the mom flew down 💕

Hi friends! We’ve dug up and disposed of this TRV-infected peony and are wondering if we’d be able to plant something new in the area right away.

- three peonies came from my mom’s garden last fall
- Other two peonies show no signs of TRV
- No peonies in my mom’s garden have TRV (so, not sure where it came from)
- We dug a wide berth and much deeper around the roots and removed the entire area
- We have fresh new soil we can backfill/plant something else in with, but haven’t filled it in yet.

My mom is moving in two weeks and wants to give us more plants out of her garden, including other peonies. My question is, is there anything else we should do to this hole right away before backfilling, and can we plant something new here right away?

The virus seems to be localized to just this plant, and while I’m not sure where it came from, I would be surprised if it was already in our soil. Prior to learning about TRV I didn’t sterilize pruners and other tools between plants (oops!) so it honestly could have been from any variety of new plantings we’ve put in over the past two years or something in the woodsier area of our yard. No clue!

Hello wedding goers. I have both a cocktail and BTO wedding coming up later this year. I’ve previously worn both of these dresses, but did not have good shoes for them. I’m 6’1” and struggle to find both dresses long enough for me, and dressy shoes that aren’t 3-4” heels. I don’t mind wearing heels, but I’d rather be comfortable if on my feet all night!

Dress 1 is a floor-length almost black navy dress with gold foil details. It looks like a slight high-low hem on me because I’m so tall, and I’ve previously worn this for formal weddings. Wore it with cheap gold sandals before that are inappropriately casual, so I definitely need different footwear for it. Side question: is this passable at BTO? I really don’t want to have to spend $$ on a new dress!)

Dress 2 is my go-to nicer cocktail dress. It has an open cowl back and is a slightly brighter, iridescent navy blue. I’ve previously worn this dress with a pair of nude heels.

While I’m trying to match shoes to these two dresses, I’d like to be able to make decent use of them in my wardrobe in general. I went shopping and have three new shoe options:

Shoe A, Jiya by Kelly & Katie, $46.74

PROS: sparkly; super comfortable; cheapest of the three; best match for the formal dress, I think

CONS: would really only wear for formal occasions; has a (low) heel; not as good of a color match for the cocktail dress (but passable? You tell me)

Shoe B, Gloria by Calvin Klein, $59.98

PROS: I don’t own a pair of black heels, or even pain black leather flats; neutral enough to go with everything and anything, including a long black dress I have; decently comfortable

CONS: the highest heel of the three and I don’t wear heels often; not navy (but possibly workable with these dresses if need be? Like if I wore sheer black hose in winter I’d want to wear the black heels)

Shoe C, Kaiya by Anne Klein, $50.99

PROS: comfortable; wearable with 7 additional dresses in my closet I often wear for work; can replace my old dark navy H&M flats that are falling apart (pic 4); I think dressy enough to work with both dresses…? (Again, you tell me!)

CONS: flats are inherently more casual than heels for events

Overall I’m trying to get the most bang for my buck and want to avoid keeping all three pairs. Which pair(s) match best with each dress, and which would you keep overall if it was your money being spent?

I primarily work from a home office, but go to training sessions, seminars, conventions, and networking events for my industry throughout the year. My field is very male-dominated, so most events are a sea of khakis, white button downs, and navy suit jackets. I had a casual educational/training seminar downtown today, and felt like putting something a little more fun together!

Planting a patch of 3ft tall asiatic and oriental lillies—which location would you choose?

1. West side, bay window (Pros: gets pretty much full sun; visible from both the street outdoors and office indoors. Cons: in the process of redoing this entire bed and not sure what the overall plan is yet. They may look awkward sticking out so tall by themselves for a while.)

2. West side, south of driveway (Pros: visible from the front of the house. Gets tulips in front in spring and annuals planted in after. Cons: only gets morning sun, sometimes slightly dappled by the purple leaf plum, until 10AM and is then shaded by a maple tree until almost 4PM.)

3. South side, under small window (Pros: full sun, and this bed is pretty empty since we regraded it last fall. Sunflowers are growing to the left. Cons: We won’t get to see them directly since they’re along the side of the house and not visible from the street.

Lilies are in photo 3, on the concrete pad to the far left. I purchased them with spot #3 in mind, but my husband wanted them to be more visible. He thinks we should do spot #2, but I’m worried that won’t get enough sun.

This is my first time growing zinnias. I have them planted between tulips to cover their leaves as they die back. We got two types, a Peter Pan mix and something else (can’t remember) that stays fairly short. It looks like one variety is flowering fine, but the other has several black spots developing on it. Any clue as to what this is, and how I can treat it?

I’m 100% confident this is TRV. These peonies were transplanted from my mom’s garden last fall, and I was shocked to get blooms on them this past spring. The plant in photos 1 and 2 is the peony closest to the camera in photo 3. As you can see, it’s planted about 2.5ft away from another two of her peonies.

So far, I don’t see any TRV on either of the other two. But I just deadheaded all five of my peony bushes, starting with the infected one! I didn’t see the TRV until after I’d put my pruners away and was standing there watering other plants near them. Since all of these came from my mom’s garden, it’s totally possible they all have TRV anyway and it’s just dormant in the other four, but I’m super annoyed I pruned before seeing it. It’s also possible we had TRV in our soil (only just bought the house last year) either from the original owners or in some of the bagged soil we brought in when regrading this bed last summer.

My parents also just put their house up for sale and will be moving later this summer, so if her other peonies aren’t infected it’s not like I can just get more replacements later. I guess I’m curious as to what other gardeners would do in this situation. My husband (who loves peonies and wants even more of my mom’s before they move) is of the opinion that we say fuck it, don’t worry, and only dig the plant out if it actually starts to die. The far peony in the third photo is the same color, so I was thinking of removing it…but if the TRV is in the soil, it’s not like I can plant a different peony from her garden there later this year anyway :(

Planted these two DA Mary Delaney climbing roses about 5 weeks ago. The arbor faces south/southeast and is on the east side of my house, so both roses get full sun most of the day with a little dappled shade from the arbor and tree behind for periods at a time.

The west/left rose has started leafing out nicely, but the east/right rose still looks pretty bare. I can see the canes are green and they do look to have nodes, so I’m hoping this just means the roots are getting established and I’ll start to see some growth soon. But I’m checking it every day and it’s wild to me how differently they’re growing!

(Please excuse my floppy foxglove, we just got a ton of much-needed rain last night lol.)

Last week I made a post about rotten-looking blooms. I’m in Wisconsin and we had a super wet April, dry May, and lots of goofy frosts in between. These peonies were transplanted from my mom’s garden last fall, so I was surprised to see any blooms at all. While I lost all of the light pink blooms on the middle peony, the magenta ones did bloom!

The far peony in the second photo with two blooms and a bud is the one I posted photos of last week. I cut out any bad buds or icky looking stems, and it seems to be doing just fine now. Here’s to an even better bloom next year!

Am curious as to what may have caused these buds to go bad. I’m in Wisconsin (5a) and these were transplanted from my mom’s garden last fall—I’m surprised to see buds at all! At the time of transplanting, they did have some powdery mildew (if that matters) but seemed to come up well this spring.

I have two dark pink on either side and a light pink in the middle. The light pink WAS forming buds, but they all seem to have rotted/stalled early (see photo 6). Now I’ve noticed some rotted buds on the dark pink as well.

Photos 1 and 2 show a partially rotted dark pink bud. Photo 3 is the stem of that bud, where there looks to be some sort of damage, but I can’t tell if it’s from an insect or animal? Photos 4 and 5 are two other buds on that same dark pink plant, and photo 7 is of the plant overall.

In some preliminary googling botrytis blight comes up, but all of the foliage and stems (except for that one) look healthy. We did have heavy rains in April and an unusually dry May, though I’ve been watering this month as-needed. We also had some random frosty nights here and there up until about 2 weeks ago, but all of my other plants seem to be doing fine.

I’m in Wisconsin/zone 5a, and we’ve had a bit of an erratic spring this year. These are all Let’s Dance Blue Jangles, which are a macrophylla and should bloom on both old and new wood.

Fortunately the leafy growth at the base has been great, but I haven’t seen any action on the stems and a few of the early leaves are a little curly from (I think) frost damage. I’m worried the weird spring weather we’ve had may have ruined this year’s blooms. This is my first year growing hydrangeas (planted these last summer) so I’m hoping someone more experienced can help guide my expectations.

First photo is with my bathroom lighting, second is with flash added.

I’m 36. About two years ago I noticed I suddenly had a bunch of cherry angiomas all over my chest and neck, which I’ve since had removed. Since my twenties I’ve also been very prone to milia, and at age 31 I started getting contact dermatitis flare ups around my eyelids and lip line that almost present like eczema or periorificial dermatitis.

However, over the past 6mo, I’ve noticed I can feel little bumps on my neck when putting on my daily moisturizer. I figured these were skin tags due to aging and slight hormonal changes, or possibly an exfoliation issue now that I’m wearing sunscreen every day, but was curious if anyone else had experienced something similar. (I had my IUD removed and started on a prenatal last fall as were family planning, so I suppose the appearance of these could coincide with that. But am definitely not/haven’t been pregnant.) Am really hoping they aren’t some kind of wart or something!

Zero itching/pain/discomfort. Predominantly on my right side (I’m a left side sleeper) and not really any on my chest or back of my neck. I have a derm I see regularly for the contact dermatitis flare ups I periodically get as well as annual skin checks.

(White stuff on leaves is dried Liquid Fence! Not a fungus, I promise haha.)

So I planted three small Rampao rhododendrons last summer. I’m in Wisconsin, zone 5a, and they got a little dry at one point at the peak of the summer but ultimately seemed to recover well.

I had a nice showing of blooms from my PJM earlier this spring, and was eagerly awaiting the blooms on these guys. However, I only ended up with a small handful of flowers on each plant. While it’s technically possible deer ate them, Liquid Fence kept them very effectively away from my PJM and tulips everywhere else in my yard.

I originally thought the little brown buds were flowers yet to bloom, but now I see lots of leaves coming in. **What can I do to encourage better blooms next spring?**

Specifically looking for the Pocket Mixx edition, which does NOT have the red rose spine and is physically a little smaller than the regular edition. [Link here for cover comparison showing the version I’m after.](https://imgur.com/a/CBiEGj1)

ISBN-10 is 1892213095 and ISBN-13 is 9781892213099

I recently tried to buy one off of eBay/Amazon and received 1/3 of a book 💀 Looking for anything G3 condition or better, but would consider G2 depending on price. Thank you!

So the good news is I received an immediate refund when I requested one. But I cannot BELIEVE someone would even sell this!

I’ve been on the hunt for a specific printing of Peach Girl Volume 2 (ISBN 9781892213099 if anyone has one they’re willing to sell!) and found a listing on eBay for a tolerable price. Condition was listed as “Good,” and when I messaged the seller they said this meant “it is possible that the book has writing, cover damage, water damage, highlighting, bending, etc.“

Fair enough, I figured it was one of those large warehouse resellers and I’d take the gamble, hoping for G3 and expecting G2.

I knew as soon as I grabbed it from the mailbox that something was wrong. It was sent in one of those plastic/vinyl sleeves and felt like a pamphlet, not a book.

Like I said, I *did* receive an immediate refund so at least I’m not out any money. The seller didn’t even want me to bother shipping it back (I wonder why…lol.) But I just had to share here, because I was in absolute disbelief! If anyone else has had similar frustrations trying to find OOP books, please feel free to share your experience and commiserate with me. In the meantime, my search continues 🥲