Sheri, The blossoms themselves have nothing to do with blossom end rot. It is really just a physiological problem involving calcium uptake, and the blossom has nothing to do with that--once the fruit has set, the blossom is just "an innocent bystander". You can pick the blossom off after a fruit has formed, but it won't have any effect either way. I think you and I both should be VERY grateful that our plants are alive and producing in this wild and wacky weather, because it appears we are in the minority who are having success. One of my "old rancher" neighbors stopped by to see me yesterday. He said he was being nosy and just wanted to know how my tomatoes were doing. I told him that it was a rough year and that I was getting ripe tomatoes, but not as many and not as early as in previous years. He told me that "no one" in Love County was getting any tomatoes at all---well, that is, except for the two of us. He ran down the long list of tomato growers we both know, and some that I don't know, describing what was wrong with their plants or what had happened to their plants. He described the plants of one of his friends who farms down on sandy river-bottom soil as being totally defoliated ("not a single leaf") and wanted to know why. I told him I assumed they were in high water underground since he was so close to the river, and that the leaf drop was a sign the plants weren't going to make it. He said that was what he thought too. He then asked me what I was doing with my tomatoes, and I told him we'd been eating them. I told him I made a big pot of spaghetti sauce earlier in the week, and a big pot of tortilla soup later in the week. He asked if I made them with my green tomatoes, and I told him I used ripe ones. (I didn't really understand his question----was he trying to imply I didn't have ripe tomatoes?) Anyway, I think maybe he was hoping I would offer him some of our ripe tomatoes---but I didn't. I have plans for them, and I know he IS getting ripe tomatoes, so I am not giving him mine. What I think he REALLY wanted was for me to give him 5 or 10 gallons of ripe tomatoes to take and give away to all his farmer/rancher buddies who have suffered a tomato crop failure this year. I did that in 2004, but I am not giving as many away this year because I feel like the harvest could cease anytime, especially if the rain continues. So, there you have it....I am being selfish and stingy and not giving away tomatoes this year, and I am unapologetic about it. In the good years, I give away hundreds of tomatoes, but in the bad years, everyone else is on their own. After what I have had to go through to get this harvest, it is not walking out the door with someone else. Isn't that a terrible attitude--I am NOT usually like that. I really cherish each and every tomato I get this year, though, because it has been such a hard year and a large harvest is not guaranteed. With six inches of rain since Friday evening, I am afraid my plants are in serious trouble. Watch your plants---they can go downhill VERY fast at this point. If the yellowing progresses rapidly up the plants, you can take cuttings from the healthiest foliage at the top of the plant and root them in water or soil. In just a couple of weeks those cuttings will provide you with new plants in case yours decline/die quickly. I have gone from a garden full of semi-healthy plants to a garden full of dead plants in about a month's time in very rainy weather. Once the sun comes out and begins stressing plants already stressed by excessive moisture, early blight and other problems gather steam like a fast freight train. Dawn

I've never seen root rot on a jaboticaba. Mine, which are in ground of course, are in the lowest point in my entire property. There have been some multi-day rain events that have left standing water in this area for a full 10 days without any root issues. During dry season, I'll let the hose run completely flooding the area. That doesn't leave any standing water for more than a day, but I usually have to do it a day or two in a row before flowering commences. Good luck. Harry

I'll start by qualifying my response that I can't recommend columnar trees specifically since I don't grow any, but will add what I notice about color. Here oak autumn foliage color seems to vary year to year more than most trees, even with named varieties, though this fall they were almost as bright as some of the maples. To my mind, they do have the advantage of being one of the later turning trees and so extend the color season by a couple of weeks. Other later-turning trees with more consistent color include American beech (which turn from the outside of the tree inward, a lovely effect that often gives it chestnut, gold, and chartreuse simultaneously), birches, and aspen, both of which turn gold. I particularly like yellow birch (Betula alleghaniensis) and river birch (Betula nigra) both of which have lovely form, interesting bark, and seem much loved by the smaller birds. Red maples and their crosses (the crosses such as A. freemanii turn later than straight red maples IME) and sugar maples turn bright colors consistently, but there is a fair variety to the actual color based on the tree's genetics and its location in sun vs. shade. More red to orange occurs in more sun IME. I also find that the red maple crosses and the sugar maples tend to hold their leaves longer than the straight red maples here. I like pagoda dogwoods (Cornus alternifolia) a lot - they grow wild here in everything from full sun to full shade, and turn nice, though not stunning, colors regardless. They are the only tree dogwood that will be consistently hardy for you, though the tree's provenance may be important to how well it does. I have three Golden Shadows, the trade name for 'W. Stackman', that are about 5 years old, and they haven't grown much, so I am not sure if they are perhaps a bit less cold tolerant than the species or if the half shade that they are in has too little light for their liking this far north. I find the straight species to be a rapid grower, over my head in 4 years from seed. The have a short season of lacy spring flowers, followed by berries that slowly turn from green to pinkish to more purple to end a purple-black with bright red stems. The birds keep the tree hopping with activity when the berries are ripe, and then after the fall color, the winter branch structure is graceful layers. If you end up needing to replace the junipers, there are some varieties of blue spruce shorter than full tree height that may do well for you there if you want that bluish color. Even though western, blue spruce seem to do better with our humidity than J. scopulorum. Or put it a row of Fothergilla which has great spring flowers, stunning fall color, and is dense enough May-October to make an excellent screen if you use one of the taller ones such as F. major. Its slight suckering tendencies and dense branching will even help with winter screening. To save yourself having to add your location to posts or us having to ask and then hunt for the info, you might want to put your location and zone in your profile so that it shows up next to your name whenever you post. Here's how: Go to Your Houzz in upper right of every page, click Edit Profile, and on the left side click advanced settings. Well down the advanced settings page is a blank labeled Climate Zone for Garden Forums along with a link to find your zone. If you add info on your state or the nearest large city you will get even better information since zone only relates to average coldest winter temperatures. Then return to the top of the page and click Done Editing.

Okay. You asked. LAYERS AND MILKERS If there had been an Oscar for Best Aunt, my Aunt Kate would have won. She became a legend in our family, not because of anything great that she did, but just for being, well, for being Aunt Kate. Apparently she had a peculiar immune system that prevented her from acquiring much of the education she was exposed to. Some of her remarks are still quoted and passed on to each new generation in our family. She had no worldly goods to leave behind. As a six-year-old on a summer visit, though, she gave me an intangible gift. Being the youngest in a large family, I was never given any chores or responsibilities. Aunt Kate changed that. She took me to the hen house and showed me how to rob the nests. She explained the purpose of the nest eggs. Foolish hens! henhen Could they not see those were doorknobs, not real eggs? One morning she gave me the basket and told me to gather the eggs. Me? I had never done anything on my own. Aunt Kate was trusting me to go, alone, to the hen house and bring back those eggs! The nests were warm and the hens were singing their hen songs. And I was gathering eggs, counting as I went. Wearing my pride for all to see, I returned to the house and handed over the basket. No one stood up to cheer. Did no one notice this metamorphosis? Did I not look older? Taller, wiser? Gathering eggs may not have been exciting to the others, but to me, I had just made my first trip into another world, a world that a child had entered with an invisible passport. Aunt Kate not only had chickens. She also had a cow. Now, real live cows don't look like the ones in the picture books. They don't really say moo, either. I had watched Aunt Kate milk: she even tried to teach me. I still remember the technique, though I have never had any desire to repeat it. The second trip into Grown-up Land came one afternoon when Aunt Kate asked me to bring the cow up to the shed. I had passed egg-gathering with a good grade. Bringing the cow in must be postgraduate work. All I needed to do, she said, was hold the chain and the cow would follow me. That might have worked for Aunt Kate, but that old cow was having none of it with this puny little kid. Old Bessie dug her feet into the dirt and those huge eyes dared me to pull on that chain. Didn't she know I had been emancipated? I wasn't just a kid. I had graduated from egg-gathering. Surely I could get a cow to follow me. I pulled. Old Bessie stood her ground. I tugged. She gave her head a swift shake and a twist and bawled something that definitely didn't sound like moo. The chain went sliding through my hand, leaving a trail of blood where there had been . . . had been . . . a wart on my finger. The wart was gone. The cow was gone. Dripping blood and crying for my mother, I was a little kid again. I knew I had lost my credentials. I was a dropout from cow school. I decided that egg-gathering was just about right for a six-year-old. What did I really learn? Just this: it takes more than a week at Aunt Kate's to turn a kid into a grownup. I didn't get my diploma, but Aunt Kate still gets my vote for that Oscar. © Sue Hamilton