A lovely description, Daisy, and I'm afraid I'm feeling envious. What Bart said about his Tuscan garden perfectly describes the situation here as well: a year of no spring and no fall, and summer that refuses to end. However, it's supposed to end soon. The forecast is for temperatures to drop beginning today, and we may see some rain starting in about a week. Though I'll believe it when the water begins to descend from the clouds. Meanwhile, enjoy your beautiful island. Melissa

I love "might could", Nell. I get the biggest kick out of that, and I sometimes use it myself! I had thought that colloquialism originated in Texas. Quite a few Anglos in New Mexico speak with southern accents. Some are descendants of Confederate soldiers, the accent has been passed down through generations! There are a lot of relocated Canadians and descendants of Canadians in Massachusetts, Nancy. I agree that the accent for Anglo Canadians is similar to a Massachusetts, or New England, accent. In my own family, three of my paternal great grandparents came down from Canada. One of them came from an area in Nova Scotia where Scots Gaelic was the predominant language. (Martha Mora told me that my great gran probably came from Cape Breton, where Scots Gaelic is still prevalent.) One of my uncles, who married into the family, calls himself a Canuck. His heritage is French Canadian. He speaks French and English. There are some French Canadian communities in Massachusetts where French is the language people speak in their homes. I'm from Salem, which is near Boston. One of the Catholic churches in Salem celebrates two masses each Sunday in French. I attended one of the French services once. I used to know an older woman, who came from a French speaking Canadian family. She was born in Massachusetts. She didn't begin to learn English until she entered the first grade. She told me English was very difficult for her to learn because her parents would not allow her to speak English in their house! Lorna

nurseryman33, thanks for reviewing and responding to my post. I have given the tree a closer inspection. The dying leaves have now spread to about four branches. The branches are not physically damaged. The buds look good, where the leaves still look good but out toward the end of each branch, where the leaves are dying, the buds are dying too. I noticed that on both dying leaves and healthy ones, there are very tiny little bugs/mites. They are black and hard to even see (smaller than bits of pepper). I now wonder if I have some type of insect infestation. I will do more internet research. Your response is appreciated, thanks. This post was edited by Redwing2 on Sun, Sep 1, 13 at 10:21

Hi Terri, Ok, I'm glad you know what I mean. Often people save the seeds not realizing that sometimes they never got fertilized. It is odd too, some varieties seem to have lots of ripe seeds while others have hardly any. I just collected seeds of one variety that blooms fairly early. I'm watching another that blooms a bit later. They are almost ready. My sweet autumn is just a baby, so I don't know about it in particular. Remy