Cath, we have a lot of the same plants, but evidently mice and boars don't gobble up all your crocuses. I am so glad that hellebores and narcissus are poisonous and get left alone! It all sounds lovely--lots of little plants that you can pay close attention to. You remind me that for some reason I've never planted snowdrops. There's a nandina with pale berries? I'll have to keep an eye out for it. And I need to start getting pickier about my hellebores. Most of my orientalis ones are seedlings from friends' gardens, some very pretty, but a few have flowers that could honestly be described as insignificant. H. foetidus and, I think it's H. viridiflora, are native locally; it's a clan that does well here. Suzy, You're right. I'm pretty well acquainted with my winter rhythms: every year I collapse around our Thanksgiving (it falls in the fourth week of November) and come back to life around the end of January/beginning of February. You could say that my illness and the bad weather will help tide me over the dreariest time of the year, since by the time both are past we should be arrived at the period when I regularly perk up anyway. Meanwhile I intend to stay warm and, perhaps, continue my review of Latin. 'Treasure Trove' is satisfactory once it gets going. Last year when it flowered it was a sheet, a wall, of pale apricot-tinted bloom, and the foliage and new growth are handsome. I don't know how hardy it is; its appearance suggests Tea not too far back in its ancestry. I wish we had more trees to grow massive climbers up. I definitely approve of your intention of growing lots of them on your new property. About garden design vs. plant collecting: Graham Thomas said that gardeners tended to be predominantly one or the other, along a continuum of course. For my part I think I'm equal parts collector and landscape gardener, and a lot of my garden planning is dedicated to finding the right plant that the garden needs for a particular situation, and finding the right situation for the plant I want to grow. You CAN have it both ways. YOU can have it both ways, if that's what you want. As you say, you already know what you need to do; it's just a matter of deciding what you truly desire. Henry Mitchell (my favorite garden writer and a wise man) said that gardeners generally start out just wanting a lot of flowers, and then over time start learning to plan along more architectural (for want of a better word) lines, just because they find they like the results better. I totally agree with him. Obviously I'm a collector, and I'll add that I'm allergic to masses of cloned plants; I'm for variety, once and always. But there's nothing in the garden that moves me more than a glimpse of the ignoble shed in one corner, with ill-tended grass and three happily grouped adolescent Italian cypresses: that combination of volume, form, height, and emptiness causes a thrill in my stomach every time my eyes light on it. Shade gardening is probably easier in Italy than it is in England, as we get so much more sun than you do. Roses actually like part shade here. The difficulty of the shade garden is that much of the soil is extremely thin, as it's an old slide area, and where it didn't slide it was because of underlying rock. The garden needs a lot of organic matter, and adding soil doesn't hurt either. These may not be problems on the property you're moving onto. Your plants are going to somewhat different than the ones I grow: perhaps box will do better for you than for me; perhaps bay laurel will be too tender for your garden while osmanthus or holly are a sure bet. But I agree about evergreen shrubs. To quote Henry Mitchell on the Hick's yew: "Like all yews, it confers a remarkable air of solidity, cheerfulness, [and] sobriety..."; and similar claims can be made for many other evergreens. Best wishes for your new garden! Thanks, Pam, and you are so right. Paula, continue ever hopeful. I hope my garden will come together one day and begin to approach what I have in mind; so much of the that mental image seems a remote dream. But I keep on planning and digging and planting. Visitors are welcome, by the way, if you get round to this part of the world. Suzy, I would be interested to see what you make of my activities. Melissa

Oh, Jeri, that's a gorgeous rose. I have Hermosa, and I can tell it has Bourbon blood because it gets leggy when I just snap the deadheads. I've started nipping it back a little to keep it just a little bushier. It can get quite bare sometimes and a little black spot. Zaphod42, if you try them, let us know how they work out. Sherry Here is a link that might be useful: If only sweat were irrigation...

Apparently fishing line works just as well......stretching it from tree to tree a couple of feet off the ground......

Jim, those really *are* cool pictures! :-) But I have to admit that I "triple-hate" yellow jackets, because I am *extemely* allergic to them. Plus they are very much enamored of bindweed which I despise just about as much as them. Those two dirty rotters go "hand in hand". Sure they have their place. I totally get that, but I hate them both, nonetheless. :-/ Goes off muttering...*&%@! dirty, rotten', stinkin' yellow jackets and bindweed...phfft!