Mulberries make a terrific sauce for use over ice cream/yogurt/pancakes or cake. Heat in a small amount of water, add sugar or Spenda if you want to, remove stems, and either freeze or refrigerate. I like to add a dash of lemon zest. We eat most fresh, but the frozen ones are always welcomed. Oh, freeze some inside water/lemon ice cubes to drop into drinks in late summer. They look cool and taste great! I'm sad, my fresh big ones are all gone. They ripen here in spring. The dwarf Everbearing is still going strong.. Lisa

Thanks for starting this thread, Ingrid. In fact I was thinking not only of resource-thrifty plants and gardening techniques, but also of attitude adjustment. I agree with your ideas. When I started gardening here I had an idea that water was going to be the critical item, and with our dry summers and diminishing rainfall that's true, though we also have our flood-landslide years. Scrounging up organic matter also turns out to be quite a chore. I think it's scarcer here than in the U.S., and our clay is very poor in organic matter, though once adequately supplemented it takes care of itself. People who garden in Florida sand, for example, may need to amend forever--do you? I'm asking--while, if I can ever get ground well enough amended that the plants there grow vigorously, the litter and prunings from those same plants provide all the organic amendment that ground needs. Unfortunately there's not much of the garden where this happy state of affair reigns, but it's true for the escarpment in front of the house, the bed beside the house with the big climbing roses, much of the woods, and a few other places. My goal is to get the garden feeding itself. Generally I'm friends with annual grass in the beds: it grows, dies, and provide a layer of organic matter above AND below the ground, with its dead roots that I don't have to dig in. I want all the ground covered with plants busily generating organic matter. Nonetheless I anticipate that we're going to be buying bales of old hay for years to come. Digging big planting holes and heavily amending the the soil we return to them has shown itself to be a necessity. We water plants the first year after they're planted, and little or none after that. We have one hose for the big garden and water by hand. Plants grow VERY SLOWLY here. This is part of the attitude adjustment I mentioned. However, if I dug them a good hole to start and the plants are tolerably adapted to their conditions, they hang on through all kinds of adverse conditions, not keeling over when the summer drought hits. They develop good root systems, I believe. We have deep clay they can dig themselves down into, the ground is moisture retentive, and we have 40" of average annual rainfall. All this makes dry gardening feasible. (N.b. I believe there are plants that grow in thin soil in dry climates: not everything requires clay and good annual rainfall.) More attitude adjustment: I accept that my roses aren't going to bloom to speak of in summer, nor will much else. By the end of summer the sunny garden in fact looks like a bomb hit it. Total devastation. I stay indoors and forget the garden, rather like northern gardeners in winter, or I stay under the wisteria pergola, where I have my sansevierias and other potted plants to admire. Last summer we got busy clearing a strip of woodland of ivy and brush, and the shade down there was very enjoyable. Just a pleasant spot to be in is worth having, whether or not anything is in bloom. And good foliage and interesting plant form can be present and enjoyable even in a drought. I love the seasonal aspect of the garden, looking forward to cyclamen and the persimmon in fall, admiring dormant buds and sarcococca flowers in winter, getting thrilled by the first sweet violets at the end of February. As always, I have more to say, but I ran out of steam. Coming up: trees. I want to hear others' thoughts. Melissa

Local plant propagators have made giant strides over the last 40 years to introduce a wide variety of species that can handle our salty soils, challenging climate, indigenous pests and diseases, as well as brutal maintenance practices by some landscapers. Mountain States Wholesale Nursery in Litchfield Park is one. Just take a look at their web site and you'll find trees (65), shrubs (120), groundcovers (21), grasses (22), vines (6), succulents and accents (74), perennials (48), cactus. New introductions are being tested all the time. Other growers include Arid Zone Trees, Arizona Wholesale Growers, Desert Tree Farm, etc. The University of Arizona does research on salinity tolerance, diseases, cold resistance, water demands, etc., but leaves the introduction of new species up to the commercial growers. Here's a link to a database with over 600 desert-adapted plants including 128 trees. Some that might interest you include Silk Floss, Jujube, Carob, or Chinese Pistache. BTW, oranges are easy to grow here but as land became more and more valuable, taxes increased and the costs to pump or buy water to irrigate orchards became prohibitive, owners sold their land. Here is a link that might be useful: Water Wise Plant Database

How many square feet is it. You do know yo will never use the balconette right? It's just decoration. Here is a link that might be useful: Rod & DJs House Building Adventure