Howdy All. Mike, there's a few questions that need answering. For instance, is your friends house bright or shady in winter? Is there one type of plant preferable to another? Tropical vs succulent? What about humidity? IMO, if a home is bright/sunny, cactus & succulents are the easiest plants to keep..providing they're not over-watered. You said she has an Aloe. What's its age? If she hasn't any problems keeping an it alive, her window/s are bright enough to grow 'most' other C&S. Also, C&S's need less watering and fertilizing than tropical or subtropical plants. So, that takes care of the high-maintenance issue.. :) I no longer consider C&S a challenge. There are so many succulents bearing beautiful colors, leaf shapes and most eventually flower. BTW, you said she has a Sans, too..if she's able to keep the Aloe and Sans alive, considering both are succulent, perhaps her best bet would be to look into different succulents..There are many to choose from. The name, Cast Iron Plant, 'Aspidistra' pretty much describes this plants' personality. As long as it's not over-watered and/or over-potted..The only problem is, if your friend is looking for a fast-grower, the Aspidistra isn't for her, unless she finds a larger specimen. Asp's are rarely sold here in IL..if I wanted one it'd have to be ordered online. The above recommendations are great choices, though I tend to disagree about Wandering Jews. They need a certain amount of light to keep their colors and larger, sturdy leaves.. They also need pruning, otherwise stems grow spindly. Humidity is a must, so over-wintering can be a problem...But not impossible. I hope your friend found something suitable. Did she? Toni

You should post your question about proper ID and care of your cordyline on cloudforest.con/northwest. That discussions board is for gardeners in the Pacific northwest and there are many people there who grow both cordyline indivisa, cordyline australis and the many hybrids that exist. They could point you in the right dirrection. You might even be able to grow it outdoors, depending on what part of Oregon you live in. I know there are people in coastal Oregon who have large cordylines outside in the ground. Here is a link that might be useful: Let's go to cloudforest.com/northwest! Click here

Woody....I have had those sickly tomatoes some years. Seems to me, no matter how well you take care of them, some years, that is what you get. I need to get a photo of the two measly little tomato plants we have this year. Foliage looks great, but they are about 2 feet tall with a hand ful of tomatoes each. I will have to do better next year and hope for more sun, less rain. As I think I already mentioned, the brugs didn't work out for my benign neglect style either. [g] Gardenbug....amazing that you have such a large garden but weeds look the same in your garden beds as they do in our garden, just more of them I guess. I don't have that burdock, I don't think. Has that got a taproot? You must have some great soil to grow weeds that well. :-) What you call twitch grass doesn't look like the perennial grass weed we had. We had a grass with long white roots, that the more you pulled it, the more of it you got. Every little bit of broken root you left in the soil would be a new plant. One year we made the mistake of rototilling to get rid of it, before we realized we couldn't have done anything worse. The only thing that stopped that grass weed, was smothering it for a year. I was actually getting ready to ask on the forums what people's experience has been with flagstone paths with thyme and other creeping plants. I love that look when it is weed-free and I don't want to create a big job for myself. One of my problems with that approach is that I have clay soil and thymes don't like me unless it is in a raised bed. I had the idea that the only way to really have that work is if you place all the plants like 3 inches apart through out the entire walk so they will grow in quickly and suppress the weeds. If you have a long walkway, that would be a lot of plants. Expensive. Also, not sure how it works in the shade, in clay. Not a lot of plants that can grow in those conditions between pavers. With the clematis, my one clematis, doesn't look that great after it finishes blooming either but it is in an out of the way area that I am not always looking at. Any chance you could cut the foliage back to the ground after blooming and still get flowers the next year, and a fresh crop of foliage for this year? I thought there was at least one group of clematis that grow and bloom on new wood. I suppose that is giving yourself another job though. I will try to take a photo of our veggie garden pathways that have the fabric on them and see what you think. I've done that some years with the veggie starts never making it into the beds. Very sad. :-( But life is full of twists and turns and the best laid plans of mice and men.... Well...I hope you can come up with a few things to change for next year over the winter, that will make you feel you are able to keep up more. Other than inviting all the Idylls up to get things ship shape...I can't think of more ideas. lol IU6? [g] Hey, we could all take a turn. :-) [Kathy...looking over the photos...I was wondering how did you plot the curve in your front walk, hose? It came out really nice. :-) pm2

Linda, Thank you for asking. Yes, I confess. I love cannas. In my climate, there are only a few people I know that can leave them in the ground year round and I consider them magicians with microclimates. The rest of us must store them over winter somehow. I prefer not to dig mostly out of laziness. You are exactly right about the bubble pack and brown paper. Brown paper for darkness and bubble pack to provide some insulation since my garage is not heated. Once they all green up, I will pull out all the brown dead leaves from last year and clean them up. In late May, they will be able to stay outside all day. For now, the canna trolley it is. I also gave them some kelp water about every 3rd water. And this year, I gave them a sprinkle of milorganite because I read that it can give you huge cannas. I don't know all the variety names that I have. I never really kept track. I do know that I have Bengal Tiger which I bought last year and a yellow one called Harvest Yellow. I actually found that out by posting on this forum which was so fun! I have a red one, a hot pink one, and I have a dwarf variety as well. The pots are pretty full and I should probably divide. I did divide the yellow one last fall so I'm waiting to see how that turned out before dividing others. I don't have the best pictures of mine, but promise to try to get better photos this year. Harvest Yellow - photo taken August 2016 (this one blooms really late)