This year I have been pushing you create your own vegetable garden. If you haven't yet put in a fall vegetable garden, you need to hurry and do so. Here is what you need to get started for fast results:

1. Choose an area of the yard in full sun and recreate a 10' X 10' bed.
2. Remove the grass and invest in a pickup load of rich landscape soil.
3. Purchase the biggest vegetable you can find either in 5" or 1 gallon size pots.
4. Space the plants leaving them plenty of room for growth, if they are too close there are a greater chance of bugs and disease.
5. Label each row with the name of each variety, you can go to a yard sale, buy some old forks, and place the see package into the fork. Place the fork at the beginning of the row.
6. Only fertilize your new plants organically, do not put synthetic chemicals on anything you eat, we already have enough chemicals in the foods we buy at the stores.
7. Keep soil moist but not soggy wet.
8. If bugs occur, spray with all natural Pyrethrin.

Please consider growing a vegetable garden. Not only is a good mental stress reliever, the vegetables will taste far better than the ones you buy at the stores. At our Sorrento nursery, you may also want to pick up a $3 dollar booklet called "vegetables naturally" which has a lot of natural tonics you can use.

Dear Friends,
So many of you have contacted me about the Garden rebel seminar cruise to the Bahama's the first week of April. As of this moment I do not have the exact dates but will know them very soon. Here is what I do know

1 It will be on Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines
2 Internationally famed artist Donna Dewberry will be giving her art seminars with me and if you've ever wanted to paint just take her class which will be at different times than my classes.
3 The cost will be very reasonable and it will be a 5 day total cruise.

In the meantime if you want to see my TV show as well as Donna's then just go to the WHDO TV schedule and watch our shows on the internet.
www.whdotv.com

There is a particular plant that I am using in landscaping a lot and I think you ought to consider using it. It's called the firecracker plant.

I have had a group of red fire crackers in an island planting, under my magnolia tree for six years now. You may think I am exaggerating, but I am telling you that these groups of plants bloom in my yard at least nine months out of the year! The other neat thing about the fire cracker is that it is a huge butterfly attractor. It is a cascading plant with a very fine needle like foliage.

The most common color is red, however the one that I m using mostly in my landscaping now is the yellow one as it is not as common. I also have a grouping in my yard of a cantaloupe covered one which happens to be my favorite. This is a much more rare color and I am slowly propagating them from stock plants to sell at my nursery in the spring.

The way that I use these plants in landscaping is as follows:

1. A single plant centered with a bay window, so you can look out the windows and see the butterflies.
2. A mass planting within an island with no other plants.
3. A grouping of three plants behind a corner specimen, with Blue Lilly of the Nile planted in front of them.
4. Plant it along slopes to control erosion and reduce weeds.

Other plants that compliment the firecracker are, day lilies, lemon grass, pompass grass, India Hawthorne, gold mound, Texas star lagustrum. Also, purple Mexican petunias in groups, in the corners of firecrackers look really good with both the red and yellow varieties. After a few years if they get too tall simply take hedge clippers and remove about fifty percent of the foliage. Fertilize them after you trim and in 6-8 weeks a whole new round of flowers will begin.