Purplemoon, Thank you for the sweet welcome! And thank you so much for that link. What a wonderful compilation of art---just amazing! Just as I expected, I was still up looking at the GJ Inspiration Album when I noticed the time -- 2:20 A.M. ! I didn't just look at the photos. I enlarged, cropped, magnified just so I could inspect every detail up to page 9. (guess you know what I'll be doing tonight when the family settles in and I have the computer all to myself. LOL) I had spent the last few weeks reorganizing, pulling out, moving, transplanting, changing focal points and now I have a whole brain full of new ideas thanks to all of you who have posted photos! I have an album at PhotoBucket but it only includes nicer areas of the gardens. Never dreamed anyone would be interested in my camping coffee pot or tennis shoes planters! I'll have to start taking new pictures and this time include what I used to think was "my way of saving the landfills and me being thrifty --- and anyway, who wants to see dirty white tennis shoes planted?". That's what I used to think, now I've found this board! Also, more about me --- other than a few 4", 6" and 8" clay pots to use as starters, there isn't a pot or plant stand in the backyard that I've ever paid for. I love curb shopping!

Thanks sunny-gw...one never knows until the bracts start to develop if a tree is tagged correctly. I've a few bougainvillea bonsai. One tagged the wrong color...so I was holding my breath hoping this one showed true form and double blooms. Since they are called paper flowers...I tucked this away in the greenhouse last night with the storm about to roll through. I don't want to lose those blooms until they are at the final peak of their showing. These are to stay longer on the tree than typical bracts. So that's also exciting.

i made a fairy garden for my girls. We used a piece of pvc and glued sticks around it. Then we made a cone top with aluminum flashing. We put little rocks around the walkway and a few succulunts as plants. We got ceramic mushrooms to place around it. One day i rolled up a tiny note i printed on the computer and placed it in the house. It said the fairy's name and how much she liked the house. My little girl went crazy and wrote back and continued to check it every day for messages from the fairy. so cute! i showed her the little fairy prints in the dirt. It is so much fun to play into their imaginations.

Ooh, Dara - how exciting! I'd never heard of the Heritage Rose Australia before - I must look it up! I would love to join fellow rose lovers and view gardens on the tour - perhaps not the whole thing but certainly the part in Perth. (And thank you so much for the compliment about my garden :-) ) Marlorena - yes, that little tree is a frangipani (plumeria) - it was one of the earliest things I planted when we first moved in the house. There had been a native peppermint tree growing in that spot which inexplicably just turned brown & died, so I had to replace it - and a frangipani was recommended. It's got beautiful pink flowers, although it's not really fragrant. Oh, and I'll share my photos of John Clare next! :-) Karen - I love that phrase "fat and sassy" - haha! And yes, Golden Celebration has one of my favourite fragrances. I think Jude is my favourite, followed by Golden Celebration and Windemere. Ingrid - we get hardly any rain in the summer months but we do get rain in winter - so I think that's more than you? It must be so hard for you to cope with the drought conditions. We do have water restrictions in summer - we're only allowed to run the drip irrigation twice a week - but we can water by hand as much as we like, and in the last month, I've been out there almost every day carrying buckets of collected waste water from the kitchen & bathroom out to the roses. Rosylady - yes, I think you're right! I'm very lucky that the previous owners chose the light stone walls and had the house painted white. It's actually brick but covered with a white plaster coating, and it does keep everything light and bright. In fact, in mid-summer, I find it a bit too dazzling to look out sometimes as the sun reflects off the walls and there's a terrible glare. But it does help all the colours stand out! ~ HY