Re: Aquilegia vulgaris

Hi Zone 5, et al.

I live in the San Francisco Bay Area & grow a couple of species Aquilegia --
whether or not they are vulgaris, I don't know. One is a California native 
(small red & yellow). The other is a washington state native, purple, very 
small, with 3 rows of ruffles & almost no spurs. Our winter, at least on
my property, varies from 25 degrees with a chill factor that takes it down to
about 10 degrees, out in the back where the winter wind cut a swathe through
my cymbidiums 2 winters ago killing more than 100 of them, **even though they
had been hardened off with 3 months of 0-10-10**. 

Conversely, in my "front" yard, in the shelter of a heated house, the temp. 
rarely drops below 25 degrees F, with virtually no wind. I have never lost 
the California natives that grow in this area, but any I might be foolish 
enough to TRY to grow "out back" have died. The washington native, however, 
which was collected "somewhere" between Tacoma & Mt. Rainier, comes up every 
year in spite of the bitter cold -- realizing that they come from an area
that is under snow for months at a time. Therefore, if you are in an area 
that drops way below 25 degrees, I'd recommend mulching, but in no way would
I recommend bringing them in the house for the winter!!  If I'm trying to 
"nurse" something that I don't think is big enough to be out for the winter, 
I put it on the floor of my greenhouse, where it probably drops to 40, but 
not lower than that.

In answer to the "pest problems", I fertilize everything except the carnivorous
plants at least once a month with Peters Professional water soluable fertilizer
using a hoze-on proportioner ... & no, I don't measure the stuff; I just guess;
5 gals of water to **approximately** 1 C granular fertilizer. (This fertilizer
I get at a good price from Home Depot. Its formula is 20-20-20. Beginning 
mid october I begin fertilizing with, basically, 0-10-10, using Liquinox liquid
**IF** I can get it -- it is called BLOOM. For reasons I don't understand, 
snails love to eat fertilizer labels, so I take a soluable pen, or a grease
pencil and write the formula on the bottle. The alternative Liquinox formulation is called GROW -- I don't use this any more since I discovered Peters 20-20-20.
	I **NEVER** USE MIRACLE GROW !!  MY EXPERIENCE WITH IT, IN MY YARD, 
	OVER THE LONG TERM, IS MORE "SPINDLY" PLANTS WHICH DIE SOONER, & ARE
	MORE LIKELY TO HAVE PEST PROBLEMS.

My experience the past 5 years, is that a regular feeding program results in 
few insect/pest problems, other than snails -- they seem to think that the
fertilizer is like taking centrum vitamins (for humans). I will occasionally
get soft fuzzy creepy crawlers on my snapdragons, but never the columbines.
I also have gotten "leaf rollers" a couple of summers ago on my raspberries.
Apparently I solved that problem by doing some dowsing on my yard, which also
got rid of the white fly, ants, & MOST of the spittle bug. So, for myself, find
your self a dowser who knows how to work with earth energies, & ask them to 
teach you how to help the energy in your own yard. Unfortunately, "one cleraing"oops, one "clearing" does not last forever! When the president of the American
Society of Dowsers cleared my yard, I was even without mosquitos for a whole 
year! No ants, no white fly, no mosquitos, no leaf rollers -- I don't even 
think I had any thrip that year.  However, I'm a relatively new dowser, & have
not yet been successful in warding off thrip or red spider, which I seem to 
have in several areas when we have mild summers like this year & last.

For anyone living in the Bay Area, yes I would give a beginning dowsing class
to anyone who can pull together 5 interested persons. I also work on other 
person's gardens, with earth energies, **BUT** it makes more sense, from a 
financial standpoint, to learn how to do it yourself, so you don't have to 
keep hiring someone to come & do it for you. For more information on the 
"wonderful world of dowsing" you can contact:

	American Society of Dowsers   
	P.O. Box 24
	Danville, Vermont 05828
	(802) 684-3417

One web site:  www.newhampshire.com

My favorite teacher is a guy name Joey Korn who gives classes all over the U.S.
His web site is:  http://dowsers.com

His "groundbreaking book" for working with "grounding" energies is called
"Dowsing: A Path to Enlightenment."  Written January 1999. Joey's phone
number is 706/ 736-2549 (Augusta, GA). He regularly attends, & teaches at, 
the West Coast Conference of Dowsers that meets every summer at UC Santa Cruz.
The ASD also has annual conferences in Vermont, Texas, Arkansas, & last year, 
it was Flagstaff, Arizona. Basically, there is a conference in one section of
the U.S. every 3 months, sort of, with the "dead of winter" having the fewest
meetings. 

WARNING: If you can't handle having your garden "take off" & grow things much
larger than "usual", you might not want to do the dowsing thing ... I have 
hundreds of kiwis on my one female vine this year, which is far too many 
considering that harvesting them REALLY raises hell with my allergies ... so 
"be careful what you wish for" such be kept in mind. When dowsing, one should
ALWAYS be very specific!! A good example of this might be to dowse to get 
twice the growth you had last year, VS MAKE THIS GARDEN AS PRODUCTIVE AS IT CAN BE ... & always add "from now into the future, as long as its appropriate".
Its sort of like asking "Does my car need gas?"  The answer will always be yes.
Does my car need gas to get me home, AT THIS MOMENT IN TIME, however, will give
you a different answer. In the case of my own garden problems, in 1998, I had
some "geopathogens"/detrimental energy cause by ley lines (underwater stream)
crossing underground electrical energy, with some microwave energy tossed in, 
plus one negative thought form. The result was terrible growth problems on one
side of the property, and 4 cases of cancer in 3 adjacent houses.

enough!! If any of you want to look in to dowsing as a means of fewer insect
problems, "you've got nothing to lose" but the time to keep up with the plants
if their growth rate "takes off".

lyn




* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
			Life's Lessons Part IX ...

The problem with the gene pool is that there is no lifeguard.

LIFE IS TOO PRECIOUS TO BE PICKY, TOO BRIEF TO BE BITTER, TOO BEAUTIFUL
TO BE BORED & ABSOLUTELY TOO WONDERFUL TO WASTE!!!

Man is the best computer we can put aboard a spacecraft ... & the only one
that can be mass produced with unskilled labor.  -- Wernher von Braun

"He who laughs last thinks slowest."

Gardens are the windows to the soul -- Lyn

"Lottery: A tax on people who are bad at math."

You cannot kill time without injuring eternity.

**That upon which you dwell in the mind you become.**

If at first you don't succeed, skydiving is not for you.

"Be nice to your kids. They'll choose your nursing home."

I haven't lost my mind -- it's backed up on tape somewhere.

*"Don't be mad at your government. They haven't done anything."*

If you can't learn to do it well, learn to enjoy doing it badly.

Confidence is the feeling you have before you understand the situation.

Flash!! It has just been discovered that research causes cancer in rats.

People often find it easier to be a result of the past than a cause of 
the future.

"We are here on earth to do good for others. What the others are here
for, I don't know."   --  W. H. Auden

"Friends are angels who lift us to our feet when our wings have trouble
remembering how to fly." -- Anonymous.

Weinberg's Second Law: If builders built buildings the way programmers 
wrote programs, then the first woodpecker that came along would destroy
civilization.

^+^+^+^+^+^+^+^+^+^+^+^+^+^+^+^+^+^+^+^+^+^+^+^+^+^+^+^+^+^+^+^+^+^+^+
"We did not weave the web of life.  We |        Lyn Dearborn 
are merely a strand in it.  Whatever   | Master Gardener/Naturalist
we do to the web, we do to ourselves"  | Native Basketry Instruction
  --"Walk gently on Mother Earth" --   | Reiki Practitioner & Dowser
-- Aaniin Anishinaabeg -- Mikinaak --  |   dearborn@bengaltech.com
^+^+^+^+^+^+^+^+^+^+^+^+^+^+^+^+^+^+^+^+^+^+^+^+^+^+^+^+^+^+^+^+^+^+^+

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