1.  Seed Packets It’s easy to understand why gardeners are passionate about seeds when you stop to consider that from each tiny seed abundant life is possible.  Seed packets make ideal Valentine gifts.  They slip easily into a Valentine’s Day card or make a unique and beautiful Valentine’s Day card in themselves.  Many, like the Botanical Interest line of seeds, have elegant, hand-drawn packets with an old world charm and the symbolism of giving someone the seeds of love to sow is romantic.   We have many seed lines to choose from such as Renee Seeds, Cornucopia, Ed Hume and Burpee.  We’re proud that our seed varieties are hand selected for our Pacific Northwest climate, giving your gardener the best possible success with starting seeds.

2. Primroses If February is the month to anticipate spring, then the primrose is the flower that kindles that joy in our hearts.   Primroses are dazzling, early blooming flowers that playfully shout out in vivid yellows, reds, pinks and blues.  Not only do they bring color to your space but also they are so delightfully fragrant!  Right now, we have a primrose special, 15 for $15, so you can make a big brilliant presentation to your sweetheart without making a big dent in your wallet.

Rose 'Valentine's Day'

3. Roses Roses are the flower of love and they are the romantic gesture.  Cut roses fade and die, but a rose bush will allow your love to bloom repeatedly.  Whether they love roses that climb, floribundas, hybrid teas, grandifloras or miniatures, we have over 200 different roses from which to choose.  Click here to see our 2012 Rose List.  This month we’re featuring the climbing rose named Valentine’s Day, which has a beautiful bright red color, double clusters of flowers and a romantic light fragrance.

5. Gift Certificates We’ve all been there: You’re looking for the perfect gift for the gardener you love… but you’re not sure which flower or tool they need or want. We have the perfect solution – a Plant Farm gift certificate. Let your gardener choose their perfect item. Slip a gift certificate into their card and give them the gift that will bring their passion home.

by Guest Blogger and President of the American Rose Society,
Jeff Wyckoff

It’s February, and while pruning time is still a few weeks away, this is a great time for planting new roses or moving old ones to a better spot, as the ground is workable and the weather is cool. Here are some tips on planting new roses, one of the most important things you can do to insure vigorous and healthy growth.

• Remove potted roses from the pot and soak them (as well as plants purchased bare root) in a bucket of water overnight.
• Before planting, trim c. a half inch off the ends of the roots. This will promote better callusing and better root development.
• Leave only two or three of the biggest canes on the plant and cut these down to about 6 inches in length.
• With potted plants, mix the potting soil into the planting hole. With bare root plants, mix in a bucketful of compost.
• Add nothing to the planting hole except c. a handful of phosphorous, either organic or chemical.  (The Plant Farm also offers both an organic and a conventional “success kit” of items to help you with the planting process. Ask about it!)
• Set the plant on a firm dirt mount so that the crown/bud union is just barely above the soil level.
• Add soil up to the level of the crown and water in. Do not settle the soil with your foot or a tool!
• After the water has soaked in add more soil, mounding it up so only the tips of the canes are visible. This will protect the developing buds from exposure to cold and wind.
• Water the mound of soil gently, so that there is no soil runoff.
• Uncover the plant by gently washing off the soil mound in March when the weather begins to warm.

When transplanting existing roses, follow these steps:

• Cut the canes down to about a foot in length, even for large shrubs and climbers.
• Make sure at least a foot of roots are dug up with the plant. Cut off any damaged or broken ones.
• Soak the plant overnight in a bucket of water
• Follow the steps listed above for planting a new rose.

For advice on pruning, plant selection, and other spring cultural chores, join me for a FREE SEMINAR at The Plant Farm on Saturday February 4th at 11:00am, “Rose Care with Jeff Wyckoff.”

In addition to being President of the American Rose Society, Jeff Wyckoff is also the author of the Better Homes and Gardens book “Rose Gardening.” We are lucky to have him speaking at The Plant Farm, and we hope you will be able to join us for this very special seminar. See the events page of our website for more details and to sign up!

We’ve got beautiful colors… even in January!

We are beyond thrilled to re-open our doors for the new season here at The Plant Farm. We’re excited about the changes in the garden center, our jam-packed calendar of events and for a new season to play in the garden.  So excited, in fact, that we’ve decided to call this year A Season of Play!

New, colorful signs abound in our store!

There are so many fun changes this season it’s hard to know where to start.  I’m maybe most excited about the fresh color in the store.   You can’t envision spring without bringing in color and that’s just what we’re doing with vibrant winter-blooming plants like Hellebore and Cyclamen.  New informational signs that anticipate the vivid colors of spring and our freshly-painted fixtures add strategic splashes of color throughout the store.  We’re eager for you to see it.

You'll find lots of cool new things on our shelves!

Speaking of the bright new fixtures, we spent our holiday break working hard and redesigned our hardlines department.  Our shopping isles are now wider for easier access and comfort.  When you visit, you’ll also notice the great new garden supplies we’re bringing in for 2012.  Coastal Climate Fertilizer, designed specifically for Northwest gardens, Espoma, a fantastic line of organic garden products, and excellent garden tools, including DeWit handcrafted, hand-forged gardening tools for serious gardeners.

Plant like a pro with our Seed Starting Success Kits!

This year we want you to play in the garden and we want you to succeed in the garden.  We have a packed calendar of free seminars featuring local experts and How-To and garden tip videos on The Plant Farm TV.  In addition, our Gifts for Gardener’s Success Kits were so popular in December, we’re debuting a year-long program of Success Kits this year.  We put together excellent products that will give you the best chance of success with your plants this year.  Look for Success Kits such as Seed Starting, Fruit Trees and Rose Care in the coming months.

Rainbows come out even when the sun is hiding!

Keep an eye out for our second annual Seasons magazine, arriving on April 1st.  Our full-color gardening magazine is not only beautiful, but chock-full of informative, inspirational articles about gardening.  Don’t forget to ask a staff member how you can earn a free copy for yourself!

Finally, and most importantly, you can’t really get in there and start playing in the dirt without the kids.  The launch of the Kids Club in 2011 was so much fun.  The videos of the Pumpkin painting from last October are especially charming. We have a new schedule of garden fun and games this year starting with Valentine Primrose Pots in February.  You can register for individual Kids Club events or sign up for the whole year.

We can't wait to see you! Come in and play with us!

As you can tell, our excitement abounds… we invite you to come play with us in 2012!

Our Center Display

Earlier this week I took a stroll through the store and I’m so impressed with our holiday offerings this year. The elegant and festive Holly trees and shrubs are particular favorites of mine and this year we have The Guardian(TM) series

The North Walkway

cedars. Three of the varieties we carry include Silberstar with its striking silver blue foliage, Golden King proudly displays its broad fan-shaped branches with golden foliage and, the delicate, lacy Silver Queen which has a snow-dusted quality in its mantle of light-green foliage. Not only are these cedars gorgeous, but they’re grown on root stock resistant to Phytophthora lateralis – a particular insidious disease that has caused the demise of many cedars over the last two decades.

However, the best are the beautifully shaped and manicured living Christmas trees; the best I’ve seen here at The Plant Farm. Living Christmas trees are increasingly popular, with not only

Carissa Unloading Trees Coming to The Plant Farm

environmentally concerned people who also want the enjoyment of a real Christmas tree, but also those who want to enjoy their holiday memories year round. Living Christmas trees are a great alternative to cut trees. They are gorgeous when decorated and lit up, but you avoid that discarded, needle-shedding carcasses days after… Talk about a post-holiday letdown. With a living Christmas tree, after the ornaments are packed away, you have a lasting, living memory when it takes up residence in your backyard.

Plant Farm Christmas Tree by Michelle P (and Kids Club backdrop)

Whether you prefer the dense, tightly packed look of a fir tree or the sparse elegance of a spruce that will show off your best ornaments, we have a varied selection of potted trees that will make excellent choices for a living Christmas tree. Check out our Live Christmas Tree handout for tips and tricks for caring for your living tree and our recommended list of trees.

by Guest Blogger and Bee Expert, Dave Hunter

I’m sure either you’ve heard that honey bees are facing huge issues across the world, or you’ve witnessed the lack of fruit now growing on your trees over the past few years.  This is due to many factors.  The honey bees are facing severe mite problems as well as a global issue called “Colony Collapse Disorder” where hives are abandoned by the entire colony.   Besides adding more and more chemicals to a hive, scientists still have no solution after 6 years of intense worldwide collaboration.

The native US bumble bees are equally seeing drastic reductions as well.  This could be due to introduction of European bumble bees carrying their own diseases, pesticides our farmers/home owners use, global weather change, or “who knows what.”

Don’t give up hope yet!  You can be part of the solution, starting with your backyard.

I’d like to introduce you to an unusual concept; you can raise pollinating gentle bees yourself without fear of getting stung. 

How is this?

The bee kingdom has two different types of bees; social (honey  bees, bumble bees), and solitary (where every female is a queen and they assume all duties.)

The bee kingdom lives in three types of environments; hives they create (honey bees, paper wasps), holes in the ground  (bumble bees, miner bees) and holes in twigs (mason bees, leaf cutters).

In general, social bees, hornets, and wasps work in a community where each has their own job.  Where we get in trouble is with the hive defenders.  “Protect the queen and our babies” is their rallying cry!  And stinging occurs…

The solitary bee, on the other hand, has no workers and little to defend.  If she guarded her nest, she wouldn’t be able to gather pollen.  As a result, it’s EXTREMELY hard to get stung by a solitary bee!  When your hand or head gets in the way of her hole, she simply hovers, goes around you, or flies away to find her hole later.

The spring mason bee is one of natures strongest pollinators.  They gather as much pollen as possible in each trip.  This results in a massive pollen exchange in each flower.  The mason bee doesn’t create honey, but nearly 99% of the flowers they land on are pollinated.  This makes them a valuable pollinator!

Your role is vital.

The agricultural scientists I collaborate with are concerned about successful pollination rates in our commercial orchards over the next five to seven years.  Already, there are small orchards/berry farms that are having difficulty with obtaining honey bees for pollination.

I’d like you to learn to be successful raising the spring mason bee.  Success means:

• Learning how easy it is to raise mason bees this season. (Buy mason bees now and try it out!)
• Make mistakes and learn from them.  Our website, crownbees.com, is easy to navigate, learn what to do,  and when you should be doing things.
• Keep enough mason bees to pollinate your yard and give your extra bees to friends & family each year.
• In 5-7 years, I’ll ask for some of your excess mason bees… these will be used in local commercial orchards like Wenatchee, Yakima, and Port Angeles.  These bees will be crucial at that point if the honey bees are less numerous.  The mason bees won’t be replacing the honey bees, but rather filling in the gaps where there aren’t enough to completely pollinate a crop.

Mason bees are simple to raise.  All you need to provide is:

• Spring pollen in your yard.  Fruit trees, big leaf maples, rhododendrons, pieris japonica, or dandelions!  You’re a gardener and should already have enough pollen in your yard.
• Nesting material to lay pollen in for nesting.  Paper tubes, reeds, or wood trays.  Anything that can be opened later for inspection.  (Not drilled blocks of wood!)
• A house to keep the nesting material dry.  Small, square,
  diamond, or raindrop shaped.  The choice is yours.  Our website will help you optimally place it.
• Mud to separate her eggs.  (Welcome to spring in the Northwest!)
• A bit of love and care.  It’s quite easy to do this when you’re able to get so close to these bees!
• Learn more about the gentle mason bee’s life cycle on on our website.

How do you start?

• Attend a free class at The Plant Farm.  On Saturday, November 19^th at 11:00 a.m., I’ll be speaking and will answer your questions.
• Buy mason bees, nesting material, and a house at The Plant Farm.
• Sign up for Bee-Mail.  This is a program on Crown Bees that reminds you when to do what.  We’re here to help you be successful!

Dave Hunter, of Crown Bees, is a bee expert, and our friend!  He’s teaching a free MASON BEES SEMINAR at The Plant Farm this Saturday (November 19th) at 11:00am.  Go to our Events Page for more information and to sign up for this terrific class!

While I appreciate the necessity of winter’s slumber before the rebirth of spring, it does not take long for winter’s frosty charm to wear thin.  When we are deep into the grey palette and bone-chilling cold of winter, my heart longs for bright color and fresh, sweet spring fragrances.  My eyes are drawn to those winter garden treasures: winter-blooming plants.

Yuletide Camellia

Camellias are a perfect example of a winter garden treasure.  With graceful, eye-catching blooms in a variety of colors, easily trainable foliage and rapid growth-rate, camellias are highly adaptable evergreen shrubs.  They are at home in garden styles from Asian to French or English cottage.  They work in a variety of landscape forms, for example, hedges, privacy screens, decorative espalier on a wall or along a fence, or individual border shrubs.  Camellias are ideal for our local gardens, as they prefer sandy, loamy, clay soil and are rated for cold hardiness zones 7-10; for lay gardeners like me, this means they are happy even if the weather drops as low as 5 degrees Fahrenheit.

Pink Yuletide Camellia

The Plant Farm has many camellias in stock right now; the brilliant white Setsugekka, blushing pink Jean May, the very popular Yuletide, a fiery red color, and Pink Yuletide, which is new in 2011, and going out the door fast! Pink Yuletide is a sport from the Yuletide camellia.  It is a truly lovely, fragrant, mid-winter bloomer, featuring elegantly shaped pink blooms that are centered with vivid yellow stamens and deep, jade green foliage.

Male Anna's Hummingbird

Remember, it is still an excellent time to plant trees and shrubs now.  In our part of the world, if you can dig a hole in the soil, you can still plant. Roots will still grow a little all winter long, so getting them in now will allow some root development during winter months.

You won’t need to escape to warmer climates to experience gorgeous blooms and bright foliage when you include camellias into your winter garden.

The colorful Western Tanager

I really enjoy attracting as many varieties of Pacific NW wild birds to my garden as I can. I always hope to coax new species into my yard and each season I’m often rewarded with a visit from a few new feathered friends.  I have two birdfeeders and one suet feeder positioned for viewing from the living room, dining room and kitchen. However, some birds are not interested in the feeders, so I’ve been adding a variety of plants to my garden that will help attract an even wider array of birds.

Adding the bird-friendly plants is working.  This year, for the first time, I had a Western Tanager in my garden and he came back at least three days in a row! This medium-sized  American songbird is striking with its red, yellow and black coloring.  The brilliant colors reminded me  of tropical birds and I found out this bird’s cousins are mostly tropical and that this particular species is the most northern flying family member. This Western Tanager event inspired me to secure a few more food producing plants for my garden spaces.

Yesterday, on a stroll through The Plant Farm’s nursery yard, I made a list of plants we have in stock right now that I know the birds will love. The plant list below would be a good one to print out and carry with you next time you come into The Plant Farm. With our big fall clearance sales going on now and all the gorgeous fall colors to see, it is the perfect time to come in and let us help you find the perfect plants to include in your very own wild birds dining table, like these…

Trees

Korean Dogwood

Korean Dogwoods: Satomi offers summer flowers of pink, fall red foliage and long lasting orbs of fruit birds love.

Flowering Crabapples: These trees offer an attractive spring flowering display, have bright fall foliage colors and very showy small fruits. There are Indian Magic, Prairiefire, Royal & Golden Raindrops to name just a few of the many kinds we have now. These are loaded with fruit so you can start attracting birds right away!

American Fringe tree: Very cool unusual flowering tree. Right now, you can tell the females from the males; you need one of each for fruit production. (Females will have the fruit)

River Birch

Yew: This evergreen conifer produces bright red fleshy fruit that woodpeckers, like our huge native Pileated Woodpecker, love.

Serviceberry (tree form): spring blooming with masses of white flowers the fruit produced will attract cedar Waxwings like crazy! Great fall red foliage color too.

Shrubs

Wentworth American Cranberry: The brilliant red fall-foliage color will dazzle you, as will the large clusters of red, juicy edible fruit produced. Yes, you can eat some too, but remember you are getting this for the birds!

Ninebark Diablo

Ninebark: This is a native shrub & we have many varieties including Diablo, Summerwine, and Coppertina to name a few. It features pretty, colorful summer foliage, and clusters of beautiful white flowers will produce fruit in late fall. Even after all the fruit is gone the peeling bark has great winter interest.

Oregon Grape: Another native shrub, the many varieties of Oregon Grape can be colorful additions to your landscape. Red fall and winter foliage colors, winter flowers of yellow help feed the Anna Hummingbirds and the purple fruit produced in summer is loved by many varieties of birds.

Serviceberry: There are tree forms (trained into a single trunk) and shrub forms of this plant. The shrub form has the same attractive white flowers as the trees with tasty summer purple fruit. Great fall red leaf color too!

Viburnum ‘Brandywine’:  The Viburnum is a striking shrub with large clusters of white flowers and blazing red fall color. The pea-sized berries start out green and as they mature in fall they turn brilliant pink and then turn bright blue with shades of purple thrown in. A real show stopper!

Snowberry

Snowberry: White berries are produced in great quantities on this NW native shrub. After the foliage falls in autumn the stems are visible as they droop gracefully under the weight of the berry clusters. New varieties produce pink berries and there is even a new groundcover variety of snowberry.

Barberries: These colorful shrubs are used as color accents for summer but are not really known as berry producers. The birds, however, know otherwise and they will quickly eat up the fruit as it matures from late fall into winter. Excellent summer and fall foliage colors as well; this is a great plant to add into the garden.

Blueberries: Why not plant some for the birds? Blueberries are a pretty addition to your landscaped yard with white blossoms each spring, summer fruit birds love and fiery red foliage each fall.

Twig Dogwoods: Every winter you will have stems with vivid yellow, red or orange to look at when most other plants have lost their bright shades. The flowers that are produced each spring give rise to great clusters of fruit the birds love. Many varieties have lovely fall foliage color too.

Cotoneaster

Cotoneaster: This plant comes in many forms from evergreen groundcovers to mid-sized or larger shrubs. The white flower clusters produce orange berries that birds gobble up.

Pyracantha: Every year the robins get drunk on the fermenting pyracantha, AKA Firethorn, berries. I even have seen the Cedar Waxwings eating the fruit right in the store near the front door, not caring that guests and I were standing close, watching them gobble up the berries!

So there you have it; if you plant them, they will come!

One more tip I learned years ago from a fellow gardener is that birds are cautious and will fly from tree to tree or shrub to shrub on their way to the bird feeder. The foliage provides protection and the birds feel safe from predators. Planting more shrubs and trees into your garden will entice these aerial masters to stick around your garden longer and if those plants are doing double-duty by providing food sources, too, imagine the new birds you will get to spot.

Bonus tip!

Anna Hummingbirds actually stick around all year in Puget Sound so providing the following winter blooming plants will help to feed our smallest feathered guests! These birds historically had been California  winterers, but use of nectar feeders year-round and additions of more winter flowering plants have coaxed the Anna hummingbird to expand their winter range!

Camellia

Camellias: December-January flowering camellias like Yuletide (red) and the new Pink Yuletide, Setsu Gekka, and White Doves.

Oregon Grape: especially the Asian species like ‘Charity’.

Enjoy and please share with us how many new feathered-friends  are coming to dinner at your wild bird dining table!

Ego strokes aside, one of the main reasons I love fall container gardening is the rules change.  I should better say, many of the rules are gone all together.  I just love thinking I’m being a little wild and breaking a few gardening codes.

One of the first rules of container gardening fall containers allows you to break is sun versus shade. Guess what, one of the blessing of little in the northwest this time of year… is it’s all shade all the time!  So mix it up.  Plants this time of year are used to a solar break.  So I can finally mixed plant colors and textures that I’ve been dying to put together.

The second and my favorite rule to break size doesn’t matter.  During the next few months you plant is going to be spending more time growing roots than growing tops, so you don’t have to think ahead and make room for expansion.  Pack it in!  I’m not a patience person, which is a killer in gardening, so I love that I can plant up a finished looking container and have it on my doorstep for immediate “ahs” and “ohs” and I don’t have to wait for it to grow on to make an impression.

That said, here’s a couple of recipes I used this season for my doorstep delights. One is a warm color option, the other is a cool color option. There are TONS of options you can try to create a color and style that will match your home. So before your door bell starts ringing, take some time to come to The Plant Farm to see what you might want to try this year, and have fun breaking a few rules.

Before: Borning!

Before: Boring…

After the removal of my summer annuals what is left is an Emerald Green Arborvitae, and two other burned out perennials that have got to go.

After: Moonlight Glow!

I love these colors. I tend to go warm for fall, but these black purples, light purples, white and silvers just glow in the shade of my porch.

 Additions include:

1 White Ornamental Cabbage
3 Raoulia
3 Purple Mini Ornamental Cabbages
1 Ajuga ‘Black Scallop’
1 Variegate Euphoria
1 ‘Pagei’ Hebe
1 Heuchera ‘Palace Purple’
3 Lavender Violas
1 Euonymus ‘Emerald Gaiety’

Before: Burnt Out

Before: Burned Out…

I believe this container didn’t get watered a couple of times. The shrubs are coming back, but it just looks burned out. So out go the shrubs.

After: Burning Autumn Sunset

This container now reminds me of those warm autumn sunsets that  are great to watch go down with a nice glass of red wine. This container will look great lined up with all

my pumpkins.

Additions include:

5 Crimson Wine Color Big Face Pansies
3 Carex ‘Buchananii’
3 Heuchera ‘Peach Flambe’
3 Ornamental Cabbage ‘Pigeon’

A little history of Hoover’s gang…

A couple of the fish were adopted in 1985- Hoover (the biggest fish and a female – a yellow grey mix) and Moby (the next biggest fish, a boy who’s a creamy white).  The rest of the first 11 were adopted in ’87. When we started the nursery at the initial site, back in 1994, we built a pond that was stocked with Moby’s gang and some gold fish. Each year the gold fish population was growing like crazy but we never had any baby koi in over 12 years, just the same 11 koi we started with.  Then, when we moved here in 2006, we brought only the koi with us and gave all the goldfish away.

Imagine the surprise when little tiny baby fish were soon spotted, not long after the move! The koi had spawned a new crop of baby koi for the first time since we had adopted them.  The fish apparently had competition between the two species and as soon as the koi had no goldfish to eat all the eggs they made babies like mad! Although now they seem to be slowing down a bit, thankfully.

It’s fun to bring the family into The Plant Farm for a visit during the summer to early autumn to shop or browse and feed the koi.  We have a fish food vending machine that is set out when the water temperature is warm enough, above 55 F.  In colder water the fish cannot digest the food, so they do not get fed from the end of October until late spring, usually sometime in April. Come out now while they are in a feeding frenzy and bring some quarters! 

 We think the coolest thing, next to the thrill of feeding the fish, is that the quarters you put into Hoover’s fish food vending machine ends up going to feed our neighbors at the Marysville Community Food Bank. This year was the second season we have been able to gift over to the food bank the sum total of all your quarters and the dollar amount this time was $1,400.00!  Hoover says thank you and we say thank you and I know the Marysville Food Bank thanks you.

So grab the family, some quarters and come in for a visit soon! Be sure to say hi to Hoover and her gang and see if you can count them!

They’re both getting up late this year!

  The weather, as you know, has been pretty cold this year, colder than normal and we can really see its effects with these two major attractions at The Plant Farm.

  The flower display for the freeway has always been put up by Mother’s Day weekend, every year since we’ve been open, but sadly, not this year. This color crop is just not far enough along in its growth and development to display outdoors. For the past three months these planters have been snuggled into a heated greenhouse growing and setting flower buds. If we had just had a bit more sun we feel we would have been on time as planned, but as it sits, this is the first year we’ll miss our Mother’s Day mark. Dang rain!

  On the bright side, the hanging flower baskets we sell were ready and got shipped over about the 22^nd of April. At first they didn’t have too many flower buds open, but with that little bit of sun we had they are really looking great now. Since your baskets are hung close to the house you won’t have to worry about the weather as much as we do with the exposed setting we subject our display to.  

  Don’t miss out on this year’s crop of baskets for a quick Mom’s Day gift here at The Plant Farm and remember to pick up a package of our Summer Liquid Feed that your Mom needs to be fertilizing her basket with and you will be her biggest hero. Our hours now are 9-7 every single day, so you don’t have to worry about missing out.

  Hurray! It’s finally May and our fish are swimming around again, showing interest in visitors! This may seem like a silly thing to be excited about, but I can’t remember a spring this tardy…where Hoover and Company were not already actively feeding by now. This has been an exceptionally cold winter and they have been on a very long fast. We have had to explain for months, especially lately, that since fish are cold blooded they can’t digest their food when the water temperature is less than 54F. You possibly didn’t know that the fish haven’t been fed at all since last Halloween! On that day we pulled the vending machine to store it for the winter as the fish settled into the bottom of the pond to wait out the cold weather to come.

  Every April we get out the ol’ floating thermometer to start checking the ponds water temperature and it has finally reached a point that’s warm enough to start feeding Hoover and the kids again. But only a little bit can be fed daily to start with since their digestion is still not woken up entirely. So next time you come visit us, make sure to go out and wave ‘Hi’ to Hoover’s gang and if the vending machine is out, drop in a quarter for a little fish food. Hoover and Company will thank you!