lol Thanks for the comments and suggestions, people, I really appreciate it. I know that this is all just a work in process and most likely never-ending. The white stones rolling onto the sidewalk makes me laugh, because I am already constantly kicking them back onto their pile. lol I'll have to do something with the hedge, I appreciate the suggestion, but I'm still a little unsure of what you mean, catkim. If you read this, could I trouble you to explain one more time, please? Thanks in advance! Also, the fine mulch is a good idea, I think. The mulch that I had and returned were actually pretty large chunks. I like the idea of dealing with less weeds, I just spent a bit of time digging a whole whack of them out of this little area. Can I buy compost at a garden store? Should it be put down first, as a fertilizer, before any mulch is thrown down? Another question about the hedge: If I have mulch down and then I start to trim my hedge, I can see this being a pretty big headache trying to pick up the trimmed pieces of hedge from amongst my mulch on the ground. Any suggestions here? I'm sure I'll think of more questions, but I do thank you again everyone. PS, looking at these last pictures I've posted, my garden looks absolutely sad. I'm sure many of you wouldn't dare post them if this were yours. It is looking better already though, I assure you. Thanks! Andy

Carol, I hate to say it in the face of such a generous offer, but I am going to come down on the side of the forces of law and order, and not take cuttings with me to Italy. I certainly do most heartily appreciate your and Luanne's offer of help! Thank you both! If you could send me the names of promising roses that you and Luanne grow, that you think might do well here, that would be decidedly helpful. Niels and I are going to work together on a list of roses to order from the U.S., and with suggested names I can go looking in Europe as well. I think you and Luanne already know that you'll be welcome if you make it over to Italy and want to come to us for a visit. You'd be doing me a favor, in fact, by allowing me to share my garden. I think it's a beautiful place, and I have no one--NO ONE--to share it with. It kills me. Frustration, thy name is loneliness. I never did get answer your response to my earlier thread "Paying the price", though I had meant to, so let me do that now. I think your climate in northern California is probably similar to what I knew in Olympia, Washingon: mild, wet from fall to spring, and with dry summers. Oddly, it was in famously wet western Washington that I began to think about water thrifty gardening, on account of the dry summer weather. I found out that roses did just fine without additional summer water; I learned to use a mulch; I realized that plants have their periods of growth that coincide with the rainy season of their place of origin. I brought all these ideas with me to Italy and have been developing them ever since. I'll get in touch with you privately about your publication, and thanks for the offer! It will be interesting to see if it has any tricks that I haven't thought up yet, because when we go on drought regimen we are very conscientiously stingy. I'm wondering what plants you have that you're worried about in case of drought. Do you have acidophile plants? Offhand, those are the ones I would imagine to be thirstiest. There is a long list of noble plants that do well in dry summers, many of them classics of the English garden: many roses, viburnums, peonies, box, yew, lavender, rosemary, and other Mediterranean sub-shrubs, buddleia, barberry, clematis (are you surprised at that one? I was), spring-blooming bulbs, lilacs, privet, sarcacocca, daphne, tall bearded iris; and I could probably come up with more. I have the huge advantage of clay soil that holds water forever, and naturally some of these plants need the cooler, shadier, and moister parts of the garden, while others thrive in good drainage and a baking sun. Kaylah, I understand perfectly what you mean. You're talking about a community that has no laws because it doesn't need them: a place in which people know and trust each other to an extent that laws aren't necessary to create a healthy social environment. When I lived with my father for a while in the eighties I didn't have a key to the house, because the house was never locked. Likewise here in our little three family settlement at the end of the road, we don't need to worry if we forget and leave the car keys in the ignition or go on a walk without locking the house. By "lawlessness" I mean something different. I'm talking about a widespread contempt for the law and for the civil order and safety of individuals that laws are, theoretically at least, designed to protect. Lawlessness means people who evade taxes and yet want social services; people who drive drunk and hit other automobiles head on, murdering everyone in the other car and their own, or who don't stop at crosswalks, slaughtering the pedestrians who are trying to the other side of the street; corporate managers who embezzle and lie and drive their company bankrupt, cheating thousands of small investers out of their savings; arsonists who burn up thousands of acres of public forest to get grazing land, uncaring about the people they kill in the process; kids who vandalize schools and cemetaries; Mafia bosses sitting in their cells, plotting deals with the political parties (on both ends of the spectrum) in which they offer the votes they control in exchange for an easing of their prison regimen, which currently aims at preventing them from managing their organizations from inside jail; gang shootouts in the streets of the cities of southern Italy; mountains of garbage in Naples.... perhaps I ought to stop here. I've seen signs recently that the Italians themselves are getting sick of the situation. One symptom is a recently founded political party called something like the "Party of Italians who have Values", and their party guidelines include not running candidates who have criminal records. They increased their vote respectably in the last elections, and I hope they stick to their priciples. Perhaps I should add that life in the Bel Paese does have its charms, and its values as well; if I didn't think it was a good place to bring a child up, and to live myself, I wouldn't be here. Rosariumrob, Somehow I missed your last message. I'm a collector. The roses that I would like to get from the U.S. are roses that, as far as I know, are not available in Europe, at least not to a private gardener. Last year I bought roses from German and French nurseries, as the selection in Italy is limited, and will continue to do so. I buy rose varieties and grow them in my garden to see how well they conform to my criteria: I'm looking for roses that are beautiful in plant and flower, fragrant, healthy without spraying, able to thrive with low summer water and moderate nutrients, and propagable by cuttings. My dream is to establish a collection of roses with these characteristics that in time can be brought into circulation in Italy, to benefit the gardens of a country that's getting warmer and drier. Italians are in general ignorant of the old roses, of the Teas in particular, and they appear to be rare both in the specialized rose nurseries and as found plants. Italian gardening tradition doesn't favor the use of a great variety of plants, and its nurseries are weak from this point of view compared with countries like England and Germany. Unfortunately the countries with the good collections don't have the climate for growing Teas, Hybrid Giganteas, etc., so these roses are poorly represented there as well. The U.S. is a country with a long history of growing warm climate roses many of which have survived as passalong plants, and there are motivated collectors and curious gardeners aplenty, plus an interest in organic gardening. Naturally it helps that the U.S. is my own country and I know the language and the culture. All these are reasons why I look to the U.S. as a place to find Teas and other roses that meet my criteria. Melissa

Did yours make it through a winter just fine without any extra protection, Jolana? When I first saw them, I didn't think it would survive for me out here in Spicewood. We carry a few things that are actually tender perennials but will likely be hardy inside Austin due to the heat island effect, so I thought that was one of those. Now that I know better I plan to get one as soon as we get more in. I hope it's as easy to start from cuttings as many have said on the pages I've read about it since I know a lot of people who will want one once they see it in my yard! Here's another unusual justicia we get sometimes: White Shrimp Plant. I have the yellow one that has the upright blooms of clear yellow (not the floppy one that's kind of greenish yellow) and it's doing great! I love that thing. Can't wait to get one of the white ones.

Thank you gardengal, we were sort of going by the handrails, so right now it's about 2.5ft" wide.. but after looking it over I would def make this area wider and then that will possibly give me the opportunity to some curves, not sure which direction yet though. I was hoping for this to be a low maintenance garden as well, and don't want to add anything that will grow too big In that case I should probably add smaller types of evergreens