Jeri, you are again, I say you're a genius with immediately seeing it as a miniature and the reverse petals... It is very hard to detect the reverse in my camera shot even when I take this 2nd series of shots... I wish everyone could see how intense the contrast is between the white and the red reverse...Somehow the camera keeps making it pinkish when it's not, it's very, very white... and just like you "guessed" this contrast can be seen several feet away, as tiny as this flower is it's very bright, like 80s lipstick bright red LOL! 2nd: Jeri and Roselovr, you both guessed right that I probably made a huge boo-boo in terms of describing it as 3"...and that indeed it's got to be a mini. I was estimating its full bloom size since the inner petals hadn't uncurled yet... It is still just under 2.5" We have had almost 5 days now of rain and thunderstorms so the birds have been very hungry... I was going to take more pics of the flower but found it on my driveway...probably a beak getting an insect snapped off its stem...so the flower has also lost quite a few petals, but still it looks pretty good... Jeri, you too are a genius in knowing right away, just by the foliage that it isn't Winifred Coulter... Winifred is supposed to be fragrant...mine smells flat and plasticy... so again,you are spot on... Roselover, if you find any more minis please field them my way...I found a few, but they were too dark or deep of a red. P.S. Iris, B1 vitamin is "useless" after I've been so spoiled to the max, roses pampered with my Garden-ville sea tea... B1 seems to have absolutely no effect in enhancing root recovery and growth in my control test studies (B1 plants versus sea tea-fed plants), whereas my Garden-ville sea tea has been absolutely amazing for me...both as root nourisher, transplant shock magic remedy, and as a fertilizer.

I grow both deciduous and evergreen bearded iris. But none of them are that close to my roses. I usually just combine them in the vase. The deciduous have their leaves hang on till December, slowly yellowing. I yank them all off in mid- to late-January and they are growing again by the end of February. I use the evergreen iris as a foliage accent. I concentrate our garden on foliage combinations because I want it to look good all year long. Flower colors are used as accents that come and go throughout the seasons (which in CA are wet and dry, LOL). First, photos of the deciduous iris: March: the iris in the RH bottom corner, planted in a clump of evergreen iberis, are the deciduous. The iris in the middle, in front of the yellow euryops bush, are evergreen: April: the deciduous iris are in bloom. Pink spikes are heuchera, "Roseda" variety: November: the deciduous iris leaves are yellowing. The evergreen iris are dark purple, unknown variety. They also rebloom if conditions are right: All the next photos are the evergreen iris. I have 15 separate beds across our property and the evergreen iris are in every one. Their sword-like leaves and blue-green color make for great foliage contrast. With wild arum leaves, at the foot of a Japanese maple in autumn: In a shady north facing bed that lives on runoff. Back row is "Gold Dust" variegated aucuba. There's a hellebore stuffed in-between the iris and the aucuba: Iris foliage with "Copper Sunset" oxalis siliquosa (do NOT confuse this with the weed oxalis pes-caprae! O. siliquosa is a very nicely behaved, pretty groundcover). In the rear a yellow variegated plectranthus battles with a variegated alstroemeria. What I like about this combo is that it all looks good even when there are no flowers: Iris mixing nicely with a hellebore: Iris leaves setting off an red "Emperor One" Japanese maple, grape vine, and fern: Iris contrasts with "Full Moon" Japanese maple, scallop-leafed pelargonium, and fine-leafed euonymus: Iris and "Occold Gold" pelargonium: Iris foliage framing a brilliant fuchsia iresine, surrounded by yellow variegated plectranthus groundcover and a nearby hellebore: Following are two photos of the same bed. One is as if you were standing at ground level. The other is looking 16' down from my kitchen window. This is the only bed where what it looks like from above, is just as important as what it looks like at ground level. Iris clumps set off (L-R) dark-leaf pelargonium, coleonema, variegated euonymus, "Occold Gold" pelargonium, white-flowering pelargonium. Across the path, more iris sit in front of a young Meyer lemon standard, with a pink-flowering cestrum shrub in the far back: Same bed, from above: Hope the photos help!

Here are some photos from my December garden. My original garden design incorporated a Japanese feel. I used to study Japanese flower arrangement (ikebana) and grew plants and flowers to do arrangements. I can't do ikebana anymore because of a problem with my hands, so I've switched over to just flowers, especially roses. I just got this little bench that has a cushion I take out there to sit on with my coffee. The bench faces most of my garden which is unseen on the right side. In the last couple of months I've cleared out shrubs along the fence behind the bench and planted roses. The Nandina is a legacy shrub, the only survivor from a prior era. That's Frances Meilland on the left and a close up of FM below. Francs Meilland does very well in cool temps (60s today), and the fragrance is great. In warmer temps, the high center flattens out and the color is more peachy/pink. In assessing the new roses planted this past season, many of my rose society members gave FM a "thumbs down". I think it wasn't considered consistent enough in its bloom form. Lady Bird Johnson is still blooming but many of her petals are blemished by the weather. This one was still pristine for some reason. Pat Austin's fragrance is really unusual IMHO; more like ripe fruit but I'm not sure which one. (My husband calls Abe Darby the "li-chee rose". I should ask him what fruit PA smells like.) Tamora is still trying to bloom despite the cold morning temps. Here's an Easy Does It, unfazed by the cooler weather and reduced sunshine. Hope to see more December garden photos! Ann

Thanks! If one can grow roses, brugmansia are cake! They are way easier to grow. They all have their pests and little problems but brugmansia aren't that difficult. Karen I grew tropicals in the desert (Phoenix and Lake Havasu AZ) so it can be done lol..minus the tree frogs of course haha. Water is the main issue and filtered shade like using shade cloth etc. If you are in SF, in addition to the common regular 'warm group' brugs, you may be able to grow the 'cold group' brugmansias which like the cool fogginess but protected from frost. They hate the extreme heat and humidity we have in FL or I would LOVE to grow them. https://www.brugmansia.us/cold-group-brugmansia/ SF Botanical Gardens https://www.sfbotanicalgarden.org/garden/bloom_10_09.shtml Come to think of it, there are some wonderful varieties of passiflora that do well in the SF area but hate it here. I am jealous of the thoughts of what I could grow there lol.