So I've thought about this for awhile now, and I've decided 1) I don't have as much room as I "measured." 2) I don't want to eat figs enough to grow them in an espalier. I was kidding myself. 3) I really want something in the plum/apricot family, perhaps enough to spray a bit. 4) I'm allergic to sulfa medicine, and sulfur in dried food, and that might be an issue in spraying. So the new plan is 2011 to work on the soil (and survive other things)and just maybe get the prunus mume in the ground this year - for winter flowers. 2012 build the kiwi and rose pergola, and plant front yellowwood tree. Work on flower garden. 2013 replace sod with clover, dig out the dry stream bed and raise the grape hill. plant kiwi and rose. 2014 build the grape structure, and sprinklers or something for water. plant grapes. 2015 get the berries and currants going. And then once everything else is well established, go back to thinking about something like a hedge of espaliered purple leaf plum, which would be pretty. I'm not giving up on my apricot yet, but I can put it off and see if something new comes out.

Thanks Nancy! By the way, a number of the seeds you sent me in our trade have now germinated. :) (I winter sowed them.) Achillea 'Cloth of Gold', Baptisia 'Screamin Yellow', Verbena bonariensis and Eryngium are all up. In fact I transplanted the Achillea 'Cloth of Gold' out into the ground yesterday and now we're getting a nice soft cool rain to soak the seedlings in. I think I'll plant some of the Baptisisia 'Screamin Yellow' into the pictured front bed where there is a nice clump of purple Baptisia australis already established.

trying to grow pure Changsha in zone 7a would be a stretch, most likely it's not going to work out, but you may have a chance in zone 7b (especially the warmer half of zone 7b) if you live in the South. I have tasted the fruit of what I believe was a Morton citrange. The fruit entirely looked like a delicious orange, very inviting, but biting into it it had an awful flavor that I can only describe as putrid, and it made me want to immediately spit it out. I was told there was one other person who tasted it that found it to taste acceptably edible and could eat it. From what I have researched, I think many other Poncirus hybrids don't taste as bad as this Morton citrange, though they usually do tend to have a similar flavor. As for the US 852 hybrid, I have seen a video where a guy said he was even able to manage to enjoy eating them. Though I suspect he probably had more "adventurous" tastes that many people.

That's the size of my little froglets! Tiny...will they grow enough to make it through winter, I wonder? Okay, so I guess it is Magnolia grandiflora species, as opposed to a cultivar? My puddle happened as follows: I was digging a hole for a plant, hit something hard and dug up a HUGE rock...took me over an hour to get it out. By the time I was done with all that, I decided to stop for the day, watered the area around the hole I dug, and I guess some water collected in there, and the next morning I saw all these little froglets hanging out in there! I have left the puddle there for them, will wait to see how long they stay...that area does not drain well, as you can tell!