I live at the end of a cul de sac, so it is not seen by many What a loss to the community, not to be noticed. It's been a long time since I uploaded a photo on GW, so I'll have to review the procedures. Here I sit in the twilight with my computer on the table after hubby grilled our dinner outside. The fireflies are twinkling back at me and the air is finally still after blowing all day. I'm very fond of what we've done recently with the yard here. Mostly in the back, but a few things in the front as well. For years, he's ad huge daffodils running parallel to the drive from house to street, about 120 feet. Last year, I put in nasturtiums which ran the whole length, and spilled over the rock wall down to the pavement. We also added a heavy planting of old fashioned zinnias, multicolored, and saved the seeds from both plants. This year, We moved the zinnias to the back, and the nasturtiums.....well, let's say we had enough seeds to go reeeeaaaalll far. At the end of last season, I bought up the left over echinaceas, coreopsis, Indian blanket/gallardia(?) and shasta daisies and May Night salvia, which are doing us proud this year. He took down his old garden fence for his defunct veggie garden and made a lawn up there. I neglected to say that our lawn slopes UP from the street to the back limit of the yard and it is about 40/50 feet higher in the back than in the front. So rows of rock wall dug from the glacial junk found here now form several tiers of terracing. The first tier, just beside this cement patio with the table and grill on it, is bordered by some sort of Siberian hedge that I despise, and will eventually dig up (like 7 plants a week or day) One less hedge to trim is the way I look at it. There is also a raised patio with a tree stump left in the middle, and I placed a weather proof fountain on the stump. Around the perimeter of the fountain is ajuga and vinca, both which bloomed so intensely purple/blue this spring that it was breathtaking. Then there is the variegated hosta which is all descended from plants originally purchased over 30 years ago. There are about 6 apple trees, 2 NH-bred Reliance peach trees, 2 funky pear trees, and the lovely blueberries which are now bearing huge fruits. Going up another tier of stone, after an expanse of lawn, is the newly planted lambs ears which are so nice to touch. He had an old chicken coop on the next level up, and I swear the common daylilies planted over it are the biggest I ever saw. I planted some of the hostas in an uneven strip behind the rhododendron, so they look like green/white molten lava flowing down the slope. We have a nice bench placed there because it is in the shade most of the day. Well, the mosquitos are getting too bad to continue, so I'll go inside. What do you do up here to get rid of skeeters? Wow!

Annie, I think we are only the tiniest bit hotter, but y'all are probably usually more humid. (On some days, I'd think the higher humidity would feel great, but on other days it would push the heat index into the stratosphere!) We have limited protection from south and north winds, but not so much from the west, and none from the east. Our clay holds too much moisture when it rains and not enough any other time, but it is great when well amended. We have one narrow band of sandy soil between the house and garden and that is where the guinea coop and chicken coop are, there under the shade of the big pecan tree. I have cannas and 4 o'clocks and rough-leaf dogwood under that pecan to help shelter the poultry from the predatory birds that like to eat them. Unfortunately, the soil amending has to be ongoing....year around, year in, year out. I am "only" 49, but wonder how many years I'll be able to garden at the current pace. Already, the heat bothers me so much more than it did 5 or 10 years ago. The garden gets a little shadier as the trees on three sides of it get larger, but I have to worry about their roots encroaching too. Our soil leans towards being neutral, around 6.8 to 7.2, as long as I keep it well-amended. I had alkaline soil (around 8.0) in Texas, and it was a struggle to lower it any at all. Unfortunately, our place here was once a farm where cotton was one of the crops raised, and there is cotton root rot in the soil. That gave me a lot of trouble in the early days, and there really is no "cure" for it, but I find that the more I amend and improve the soil, the less trouble I have with cotton root rot. Unfortunately, two or three thousand plants are susceptible to it, so I have to watch what I plant. I don't garden on most the land we have because the clay is like red concrete. Only about a acre or acre-and-a-half of it is tamed, about 3 acres are pastures where the wildflowers and grasses nurture the wildlife, and a little over 10 acres is forested and full of deer, bobcats, foxes, ringtailed cats, ferrets, snakes, snakes, snakes, and tons of other stuff, including possums, armadillos and skunks. We do mow 10' wide paths through the pastures so we can walk through there without stepping on copperheads (been there, done that, didn't care for the experience, but didn't get bitten either). I love, love, love living and gardening here, but I miss the longer growing season we had in Fort Worth, where the last spring freeze was often in mid to late-February and the first one often didn't hit until mid- to late-November. Still, I do like Oklahoma better even if it took me 39 years to get here! I envy the rainfall y'all get up there....in a GREAT year here, we'll have 30 to 34" inches and we'll be astounded that we got so much! I can't imagine routinely getting 35" or 40" or more. I'd sure like to try it for a year or two though! Most years since we've been here, it's been more like 26" or 28" or maybe 30" of rain, but one year it was 21" and another it was 24". In a year like that, it gets to where all you can do is water enough to keep the foundation from cracking. So, in a "good year" we STILL have drought here, and in a bad year it is unspeakably bad. I guess it is probably pretty much the same all over Oklahoma....is there ever really enough rainfall in June, July or August (well, maybe at Scott's! LOL). Our 17 keats have survived their first month and we've only had to kill two black snakes that were after them, although our predator-snake problem is usually the worst in July and August. DH keeps wanting to let the keats out of the brooder cages, but the last two times we did that when they were this old, something got them all, so they are staying in the brooder a while longer. I think the guinea coops is about 95% snake proof, but I am not convinced it is 100% snake proof. Our bunnies are disappearing, but I haven't heard the coyotes howling at night yet, so think they are still denned up with their young. A neighbor says a friend of his is seeing a cougar occasionally, but I haven't seen any signs of one near us for a couple of years, I think. Maybe it is the bobcats getting the rabbits. It has been such a great rabbit year, but I know it doesn't last long. The turtle eggs laid in the shrub bed (clay highly amended with compost) have hatched and we have little baby turtles everywhere, and we've had a huge population explosion in the hummingbird gang this year--ruby-throated, black-chinned, and rufous. Life is good! (Hot, but good.) I am very careful about exposure to the heat and sun. I don't wear sunscreen as often as I should (but I'm better than I used to be), but I always wear hats and, more often than not, I wear long-sleeved cotton shirts in the summertime. All the ranchers and farmers here do that to protect their skin, so at least I don't look like an oddball. (Being an organic gardener in a pretty non-organic county makes me enough of an oddball as it is! Not that I care. I wear my oddballness proudly!) Dawn

No, it's the only one like it around, except for all the darn sprouts. The other tree you see in the photo is a Chinaberry in the neighbor's yard. There are several of those on the hillside and they're blooming right now. Definitely not a pecan, hackberry, live oak, red oak, cedar elm, redbud, sycamore, cottonwood, etc. I'm pretty familiar with most of the native varieties. This looks pretty exotic to me! And STILL has me stumped darn it! I give up! I'll call it my exotic umbrella chinese-pepper sumac!

Blueberries for sure - they are easy here in NC, I have 12 different varieties, the best producing is Tifblue, but some were from unnamed plastic wrapped box packaged no name variety from Home Depot that grow and produce just fine. Fig trees may get wiped out with ice/snow/freeze every 4 or 5 years but will come back from the roots. They do get quite large and I hate to prune them so they are out in the way back (all 12) and are now 15'x15'. Easiest is common Brown Turkey that is prolific but the best tasting are Chicago Hardy, Black Mission. and Celeste. My biggest success was with dual variety grafted Asian Pear, but just before they fattened up the squirrels carried them all off in a matter of hours. I've learned that I have to put bird netting over all for them to tangle in, and hot pepper spray consistently when the fruit begins to be fruit and to be patient. Other than that they are pest free and don't require much care, are very pretty trees that doesn't get too tall or wide -- well worth it when the little fruits sell at Market for $1.50 each!!!!! and they make wonderful jam. Consider strawberries for a ground cover and that vegetables don't have to be in a vegetable garden especially with your garden's orientation to the sun, carrots have lovely leaves, leeks put on quite a show, sweet potatoes are gorgeous. The dwarf tomato plants seem to keep a lot of critters at bay, and basil is a really pretty plant over all, no matter the color of the leaves. I planted cucumbers in my front yard once when I lived in a subdivision and all the neighbors went nuts watching them twirl and wind un-trellised, growing a foot a day for sure, completely covering the "decorative gravel" the HOA made us use instead of lawn. Lots of pickles were given out that year much to everyone's delight. Rosemary grows wonderfully well here without pests and replaces those ugly green meatballs the contractors plant from one end of the US to the other, still growing ugly for 50 years and totally worthless. Grapes like to take over and the Japanese Beetles love them (use BT every 5 years for easy elimination of that pest). I grow some just for stuffing into Dolmas but have not had much luck getting a crop of edible fruit all at once because the birds do too. They really have to be trained, like weekly it seems, to keep them in moderation. I had one grow up a 40' ham radio tower in one season. One thing to think about is your lawn. Grass and all its needs for yucky chemicals is not so good for things you want to eat, and pine needles are a fire hazard. Think xeroscaping or ground covers instead. My friend asked, "When do you have enough plants?", and I replied, "When you can't see the ground." And, think of the birds too. In the dead of winter they love the native American Beautyberry, Cotoneaster, Pyracantha, Mahonia (people edible for jam too), and lots of Viburnum in various shapes and sizes that also provide beautiful flowers pest free. Some fruits you do not want are: Apples - cedar rust disease carrier/host because of our native red cedar trees, Peaches - heavily sprayed with chemicals is the only way to get a crop (of chemical laden fruit), Pear trees - fire blight magnet, Paw Paw - very slow to fruit and not very interesting visually, only eaten fresh and rather insipid, Blackberries - take over the world with underground roots that pop up everywhere even years later and compete with our native seedy blackberries without flavor, Crabapples - deer magnets who will come back for years and paw the ground where they were forever and ever, Raspberries - never produce fruit after the first year and die consistently without reason, Rhubarb - will never produce because our climate is too humid and we don't get a deep enough ground freeze. To answer your question about getting rid of everything that is there now - here's my motto: "This space is mine!" Nancy