Can you check my list and see if I have anything you want for the wolfberry? It is a rather short list right now as I am a newbie and just getting started. I also have acorns of coast live oak and some other unlisted plants like a yellow currant. Would you be interested in other exchange? I live in Duarte which is in L.A. County.

Glenn i read the description at Nourse and I'm very excited if they are indeed zone 4 hardy. I'm already deciding where to build a 20-30 foot row with probably a few plants of each. I would be curious to know if they had a spreading habit similar to a raspberry or keep the normal compact growth at the base of blackberries. Micheal I already mowed my strawberries last weekend and plan on mulching them with leaves probably in a few weeks or when we start getting heavy frosts. Could be a while as we had 85-95 degree weather last week. But it rained yesterday and it's very cloudy so i think fall has finally come here. The only fallbearing raspberries i have are two rows of Fall Gold yellow raspberries, which I'm not too impressed with but if the yellow jackets were not so bad i could probably pick a few gallons before it frosts hard. I'm also considering not cutting the Fall Golds down to the ground this fall/winter. I may let them overwinter and just cut off the top parts that are fruiting now this winter. Or maybe just cut down one row all the way, and the other the new way. If i get a decent early crop in June/July maybe the yellow jackets won't be a problem. Also i have a row of raspberries that were labeled Caroline at my local farmer's market which had a small crop of say 2 cups this summer off the small canes that overwintered. I thought it was a summer raspberry when i bought it. I didn't realize Caroline was a fallbearing variety until i did some reading online this past couple months. But so far there have been no blossoms so I am questioning whether it was labeled wrong at the market or if it a late variety not suited for my area. I'll try to get a picture up of the canes to see if anyone can notice similarities or differences between my "Caroline" raspberries and any others who truly have this variety.

OK. In your post about cover crops I mentioned that generally native plants don't need a lot of soil improvement, being already adapted to local soils as is. I think since your soil had a lawn growing more or less successfully on it, you don't need to worry much about improving the soil. If you were in new construction that would be a different matter but you're not. In our rainforests, as in most rainforests, there is very little organic matter or nutrient content in the soil itself. Too much rain, everything gets washed out. The nutrients tend to be contained in plant biomass, either living or relatively recently dead and fallen to the ground. If you were to dig a soil profile in the Quinault rainforest there'd be an organic layer of leaf and twig debris on top of the soil along with fallen logs and branches; then there'd be a very very thin A horizon which is where most soil microbial activity takes place; then there'd be a heavily leached B horizon (the lower part of what's called topsoil) and below that there might be subsoil or there might be just rock, or a glacial hardpan. I'm surprised at how thin the soil is that these trees are growing on! Roadcuts and landslides in the Olympics show big doug firs growing in just a few inches of soil on top of bedrock. Typically for rainforests, both temperate and tropical, most nutrient recycling take place in the organic litter on top of the soil and the top few inches of soil. Some plant roots reach deeper of course but mainly for water and balance, there's not much microbial activity down there. That's one reason you see so many plants growing on top of rotting logs and stumps - it's where the nutrients are. So, what to do with your garden. You could plant now, without adding anything to the planting holes, and mulch around the plants - that would mimic their native environment. In our area you can plant hardy plants any time the soil is neither frozen nor waterlogged. If this will be your first winter in this garden, you might want to see how it performs over the winter, flooding and drainage wise, before finalizing your planting plan. Or, to be sure you've gotten the lawn grasses out, you could go with the cardboard covered with manure and tree chips route, then plant in spring. Typical ryegrass lawns are not that persistent, but if you had bentgrass or quackgrass, you need to be sure it's gone before planting. Adding organic mulches should take care of any nutrient needs. Yes our soils are typically low in calcium, but that's what the native plants are used to. Don't worry about it, or the pH. Leaf mold from deciduous trees would add calcium too, it's the coniferous stuff that makes our soil acid and calcium deficient. But what does 'deficient' mean if you're growing plants that are adapted to that state?? Calcium content is mainly an issue when growing (non native) plants from areas where the soil provides more calcium than ours does. What, no salal?

Kaspar, if you're still looking in....just to give my tuppence worth, or 2 cents for the locals.... ...to be perfectly frank, the appearance of the wall with it's broken fencing and tatty exterior generally in the background, bins and other debris lying around... doesn't warrant anything too exotic in my opinion, even though your climate supports it... unless you have ambitions to upgrade the site... ...I would keep it simple and plant a hedge of Euonymus japonica 'ovatus aureus' along that wall, for a bright variegated effect, if you don't mind that... alternatively the plain dark green version with an occasional variegated plant thrown in... ...you have some useful wire netting fence behind, on which I would grow an easy Clematis viticella 'Etoile Violette'... which would cover that fence by mid summer and contrast with the hedge to startle all passers by... but without being too fussy... it flowers June-Sept and pruning is simple, cut to the ground in February... ....to go a bit further and if you want to startle and amaze, then Clematis 'Bill Mackenzie', another easy pruner, would cover that fence and half way up your tree I should think...but I would use the dark green hedge for this... Alternative hedging suggestions that appeal to me would be Rosemary 'Miss Jessups Upright' or Lavender intermedia 'Grosso'... ...none of these would object to your conditions... ...put some soil into those gaps in the wall and you could grow some attractive Cornish wall plants like Lampranthus, Aubrietia or Alyssum etc... to cascade down... ...at least cover that white pipe to the left there... happy choosing....