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I annie and live in windy city Chicago area. Enjoy what nature can offer... fresh garden grow veggies, fresh picked backyard fruits and fresh, sweet fragrant flowers all seasons. I have small collection of orchids. They either fragrant or large,beautiful such as Catt. , many of Catt.are fragrant too. There are too many orchids out there. It can be carried away very soon If I don't set up a rule first. So my primary rule of collecting is fragrant. The sweeter scent the better. This rule so far works well. I stilll have room left to add few more. The same rule goes with many of my indoor plant collection. I say indoor because there not too many varieties can grow outside zone 5 in the winter. I have to bring them in and make room for them so I count them as indoor plants for they occupy room indoor in certain time of a year. I am very atrracted to stong sweet pleasant fragrant, such as Jasimine Sambac, Sweet Olive, Citrus, Wintersweet, etc. I have many of them in my collection. In the back year orchard, I have to be careful not overdone it. Make sure my back year still looks like a back yard in a suburban home So my neigbor will still talk to me. So far, I have couple of peach trees , a 4 in 1 Asian plum tree, a 3 in 1 Asain pear tree and a mulberry tree, Illinoise everbear. I also have few current bushes, red, black , and champion white; Goumi, chokeberry, and a dozen or so blueberry in the yard. Amoung the exotic and rare list. I have a Fragrant Spring tree which you can eat its new leaves as veggie; a hardy bamboo, a bush of perannual Chinese Artichoke, Cronse. Chinese Artichoke is such amazing plant. it is a part of mint family with root looks like big fat white warm!It has very crunch texture. Jerusaline artichoke is on the other hand, look like small irregular potato. But its flower looks like a small sun flowers. Besides what is above, I also have small collection of Epi. again, scent and beauty once more works on me! I keep a small Veggie garden in the back yard. Ironically, I still go grocery shopping from time to time for I treasure my veggies so much, many times I just enjoy watching them grow. See a nut like this one before? LOL. Anyway, I am not too crazy about the precise measure, mix of fertilizer, soil, water, etc. I follow nature's rule of the thumb and common sense gardening. It worked well for me so far. My plants are flowering, fruiting, multiply,. In short, does what a plant is suppose to do.

I live in: United States

My zone is: 5

First registered on March 23,2007.