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I looked at something today and decided that it was hot. Maybe it was the thermometer or the weather report or the big red handkerchief that wiped the sweat on my brow. That got me thinking about plants that like it hot, which in our case is often on the dry side, too.

It's the afternoon sun on sites facing west or the all day sun of a southern exposure that challenges some of our favorite garden plants.

My first perennial thought was the prairie natives from a bit further west. In fact, many of them were growing here before we arrived to cut down the old growth forests whose shade had eliminated many of the sun-loving plants.

If you didn't follow that, this area was grasslands first which was crowded out by the succession of trees, long before the first settlers arrived. If you did, don't read this paragraph.

I'm thinking about black-eyed-susans, coneflowers, liatrias, baptista, and bluestem grasses, to name a few. That is a quick fail-safe list from the many perennials that will take the heat.

Rudbeckia (black-eyed susans) come with several looks and sizes. 'Goldsturm' is the one you see planted everywhere, but I have a smaller one that is gaining a major foothold on a large weedy bank. I fret about the weeds there, but am impressed with who seems to be winning the battle.

Maybe lazy might be the best approach to that problem bank. I'm learning to do that better and better. Time will tell.

Recent selections and hybridization have brought us a wonderful variety of echinaceas (coneflowers) and baptistia. I believe we have written in detail about these not too long ago.

My current observation is that the new coneflowers are a bit less ambitious than the older purple ones. I would plant them away from a lot of competition. I'm also doubtful that they will come true from seed.

To date, I believe the new baptistias are similar in vigor to the original offerings. When planting them, pick a spot and leave them there. They have a tap root which makes them more difficult to transplant and will sprout from root fragments left when you dig them up.

Liatris is a tall perennial with a long blooming stem and season. Normally, they are in the purple range. They will form a nice clump over time. There are several sizes to pick from.

The bluestems are warm season grasses that also come in several sizes. They might be my favorite grass.

I asked my wife to give me three good annual options for difficult hot spots. Our conclusion is that since most annuals are really tropical perennials, there is a long list that will work.

Two that standout are flowering vinca and portulacas. Grandmother introduced me to portulacas when I was knee-high. Back then a seed packet and a bit of neglect gave you years of enjoyment. In other words, they reseeded naturally in the garden if left alone. I am not sure that today's hybrids will reseed.

Vinca is just a blooming machine for the hot, drier spots. What else can I say? Just don't plant it early as it despises cold soil.

Looking how much is written above I get nervous because I am only half done. I still need shrubs and potential problems with hot sites. We'll go there next week.

On a recent late June day I escaped to the center of a six or eight-acre woods near my house. I found a familiar large flat rock and settled in for a nice sit. The rock is also big enough and smooth enough that it is quite suitable for laying, too.

I was a bit startled when a hummingbird appeared. My thoughts were what is he doing in the middle of a woods? Why isn't he out chasing some blooming tubular flower or feasting at a man-made feeder somewhere in the sunshine?

Closer inspection revealed that he was diligently working a rather tall, scrawny sassafras that also seemed to be lost. Sassafras are interesting trees that normally are found on fencerows and the expanding edges of woods.

Recently, I have spotted that one has appeared in a shrub border near my house. It's at a dumb place for even a small tree but since I have failed with several transplanting attempts, I will learn to live with it where Mother Nature plopped it.

Sassafras are the trees with the three different shaped leaves, irregular branching, green young stems, good fall color and late summer berries that the birds swarm to.

Even with binoculars I could not detect what was attracting the actively-working bird and there were no limbs within reach.

One has to extrapolate that if there are berries there have to be flowers. Although I could not see them it must have been sassafras bloom time.

In early May my wife spotted our first hummingbird at a fuchsia hanging basket. It was at least a week later that I was in a state of near dose in a chair near a pot of blue salvia when I was startled by a buzzing in my ear. I was having a face-to-face encounter with a male ruby-throat hummingbird.

Ruby throats are our common hummingbirds. We occasionally see one or two other species during the migration season. Normally, they are in the southwest and south into the tropics. I haven't figured out why a bird from the west coast would head for Central America by way of the east coast. Some suggest there is more food on the route less traveled.

A paragraph ago (and before, I hope) I debunked the theory that only red brings hummingbirds. They may favor red, or can find it better, but they will work any nectar-laden tubular flower with their long bills.

Last week I muttered about the growing trees in my yard becoming unfriendly to my head as I mowed the lawn. There is this rather small, sunny spot between the house and one of those trees.

From the kitchen window or the porch stoop I can envision a bed of salvia, agastache and other hummingbird favorites, the feeder my son and daughter-in-law got me for Christmas, and zillions of hummingbirds.

All I need is time and the energy to get off a chair or my favorite rock and do it.

Last winter while building a new seedling bed for rhododendrons and their friends, a 1000-gallon water storage tank got "bumped" with the tractor. It's side exploded nicely. Son Liam now has a pretty cool plastic playhouse.

It sits directly outside my dining room window.

I want to camouflage it with various heights and colors of ornamental grass. Husband Jon wants to hide it with, well, camouflage paint.

Let me make my case. There are both annual and perennial grasses that will grow in full sun. Some of the more popular annual grasses are red or purple fountain grass, Pennisetum setaceum. They won't come back next year, but make a great color accent in beds or containers with their dark red foliage.

Gaining in popularity are the low-growing fiber optic grass, Isolepsis, or ponytails grass, Stipa tenussima. With their fine textures they are great for fronts of beds or containers.

Perennial grasses come in two groups: cool season and warm season. Two of the most popular cool season grasses are Calamagrostis 'Karl Foerester' and Festuca glauca 'Elijah Blue'. They emerge from the ground early and then flower in June-July.

Warm season grasses such as Miscanthus, Panicum and Pennisetum 'Karley Rose', come up later, and bloom in the late summer. Their flower heads hold up through the winter for great seasonal interest.

I love to see snow or frost crystallized on Miscanthus heads.

Cool season grasses can be planted pretty much any time from the spring through fall, and should be divided ever few years to keep the crown healthy.

With warm season grasses hold off planting until mid-late May though August. They need warm weather to establish their roots. If planted into soil that is too cool and wet they will sit there and sulk. Again- divide these every few years to keep them healthy. I would do it in mid-May when they are coming up and still are small.

One caveat- some grasses get big. Hire your neighbor's teenage son- or find a chain and small tractor to divide certain Miscanthus and pampas grasses. A pickax is probably your best bet.

Please do not over water or fertilize grasses. The leaner the soil, the happier you will be, as they tend to get floppy in rich conditions.

If you have shade, try sedges, Carex, or Hakonechloa. This Japanese native is a beautiful specimen planted among ferns, astilbes or hostas. Additionally Hakonechloa macra 'Aureola' will be the Perennial Plant of the Year for 2009. Unfortunately I don't have shade.

I'm going to pick out some grasses for my backyard. If you see Jon, tell him to put the spray paint away.

Photos: Top left-Pennisetum setaceum, Middle right-Frost on Miscanthus 'Gracimillus' Bottom left-Hakonechloa macra 'Aureola'.

Several days ago grandson Liam and I embarked on our first major gardening project. We planted a small patch of pumpkins.

I'm sure that all the commercial pumpkin growers will say that we are too late, but then we don't need to pick, grade, box, ship, unpack and sell our Great Pumpkin. It just has to be ready a week or so before the big day.

Besides, I have planted enough pumpkins, and a lot of planting dates have given me wonderful August pumpkins. For some reason, a ripe pumpkin at the end of August just doesn't cut it like one in October. I also drove past one of Lancaster County's premier seed stores a day or two earlier, and their sign said that now is the time to plant pumpkins.

My guess is that there is still time, but I would not hesitate much longer.

The other side of the sign said that now is the time to control grubs. We all know that Japanese beetles will emerge in about a month. Most likely we know that the young beetle larva burrow into the soil in the fall. As colder weather advances they dig toward China only to reverse the process with the warming of spring and summer.

Now they are much bigger and sturdier than in the fall. Chemical control now will have some effect but will not be nearly as effective as in the fall. Organic measures need more time than we have now.

Another now is on tap for those of you who manage to keep hardy mums happy in the garden. To prevent early blooming, and to get a fuller plant for the fall, they need to be pinched. You can do it by hand or -wow- maybe I just discovered a good use for the hedge trimmer. If the neighbors are not looking and you can get at them, the highest setting on the lawn mower works, too.

You might do a touch up pinching at the beginning of July for best results. This one should be by hand.

Speaking of mums, I have written about a new series of mums called Igloos. The goal with these was to make the hardy mum hardy. My experience for years with what has been sold as hardy or garden mums is that they have a survival rate of less than half in a normal winter.

I can report a near 100 percent survival with this new series last winter. Now I admit that last winter was not that wicked, but it is still encouraging. New colors, including purple, have been added to the series this year.

Grandson Liam is still short of age three, but in the last month or so has discovered that Pop-pop has some uses and virtues. I'm not in the big three of his mother, grandmother and four-year-old friend. I trail his dad too, but being number five and a rising star is pretty neat.

My goal is to offer him what my grandmother did for me. After nearly 60 years, the time I spent with her, mostly in the garden, are among my fondest memories.

Every year the weather picks winners and losers in the garden. It's not unusual for this to happen several times throughout the growing season.

As we approach the end of spring and the official start of summer it might be wise to summarize the growing season to date.

May has been cool. May was wet. That makes excellent conditions for transplanting perennials, shrubs and trees. With the current levels of soil moisture there are no concerns about continuing to add plants to your garden. Most annuals also are happy, but that subset of annuals that like high soil and air temperatures can be struggling.

Many in that subset live in the vegetable garden. Tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, cucumbers and melons are off to a rather slow start and seem to be showing more symptoms of fungus problems.

For once, the procrastinators can smile a little. They can be the tortoises that catch the April hares. More likely, they will just get a lot closer than they usually do.

On the plus side, the rains and the cool temperatures have hindered the rise of insect populations. There is no question that a good rain is a great insecticide. One reminder, if you see bagworms on your evergreens, action should be taken sometime after mid June.

The bagworm moths emerge and lay their eggs late in the spring. Sometime between mid June and July 1, the eggs hatch. The young larvae are your best and perhaps only target if you wish to control this pest.

Summer application of horticultural oil works well by smothering the young worms. There are several other spray options. Contacting the Lancaster County Gardener's Hotline weekday mornings at 394-6851 would get you the best information if you were plagued with bagworms.

The frequent rains may be making it difficult to keep container plantings dry enough. I have seen evidence of some shrub wilts caused by root fungus spawned by too much moisture.

I have seen several problems in the rhododendron family. Leaf drop, yellowing and curling seem to predominate. They will not tolerate wet feet. This year there are more sites with wet feet than normal.

I often rail against too much watering in the garden. If you have had the water hose out for anything but transplanting and your containers, you need to put it away for the good of your plants.Another major plus is that the blooms this spring has been excellent in quality and staying power.

My assessment to date is that the spring planting season has been better than average from a temperature perspective. The rains will permit any who wish to extend the planting season.

Warmer temperatures are bound to come and the heat lovers will improve. If you are unhappy with any of those warm vegetables you planted earlier, you still have several weeks to add additional plants to ensure or extend the vegetable garden season.

Additions to you landscape match the rainfall patterns or depend on you for OCCASIONAL watering if we shift to drier conditions.