Sammy, All kinds of potential there! You can probably do pretty much what you want. I'm enjoying imagining things there now... Is this waterway a public access area? Then you might want to start your planning with a decision as to how you are going to have some visual separation between your yard and the public area, if this area has a noticeable amount of traffic. It seems to me that that planning would come first, and then some decisions as to exactly where you want the pathway to come down the hillside. It doesn't look bad as it is now, but depending on how you switch things around, you might want to find a way to visually separate the differently colored stepping pavers so that one sweep of the eye doesn't notice the difference in materials. As a matter of ease in walking, you might also want to buy some more of either kind of paver and place them a little closer together. Consider buying enough pavers more that you can pile some up as some platforms right next to the path. Pile them at different heights on the way down the slope directly next to a stepping paver so that you can place large and variously sized pots on those little platforms next to the path. Make sure that you have different plants in the different pots, including some vertical things, like (perhaps) some ornamental grasses. One other way of handling this might be to buy some extra pavers, of whichever color you want to make the path, and then use the other color, of which you'll have fewer, to make the piles that become pot platforms. You might be able to get some of those pots in a color that looks really good with one color of paver or the other. You might actually want to investigate pots before deciding on which color to select for the stacked pavers. It's amazing how much little platforms next to a downward path can add to the overall appeal of the path. Another consideration would be to add some plants that are evergreen and some that are rather tall, to use as a backdrop for the roses in little garden rooms that can branch off the main path. Camellias are just one plant that can do this "wall" separation nicely, if you get varieties that are good for your area. I'd suggest going with sasanqua camellias if you do camellias; they are more hardy and aren't prone to root rot. As long as the area that floods doesn't stay under water for very long, you might even be able to grow some sasanqua camellias in the low flat area. A few varieties you might consider for vigorous upright growth: Kanjiro, Hiryu, Hugh Evans, Misty Moon. I think you'd absolutely adore Shishigashira in some pots placed on paver stacks going down the path. (We actually have cut a shishigashira bloom here in January, and again in February, after multiple nights in the teens, including a couple with an official low of 13 degrees!) A bunch of crepe myrtles will be beautiful near the stream. I also think it might be nice to have some evergreen things there to separate your yard from any public areas. As long as the area doesn't have standing water, there might be some evergreens that would work. Arizona Cypress or perhaps Burfordi Holly might work. The taller growing sasanqua camellias would work, though it would take a few years to do much for your privacy. For something else that isn't evergreen, a weeping willow tree or a River Birch might be nice. A single weeping willow tree can become a natural focal point. Depending on your budget for this, it isn't impossible to have something like a pergola built at the bottom of your stairs. You wouldn't want it directly in the public access portion of the lower area, but farther away from the stream than that. You can build it with an elevated floor and nice stout posts, with a large planter built on one end that rises maybe 30 inches above ground level, with sides exactly meeting up with the outer edge of the posts on one end. Put wonderful dirt in the planter, and then plant it with a couple of Madame Alfred Carriere roses to climb there. MAC likes a lot of water (though not standing water, of course). Build a little bridge to get from the path to the pergola. (I've little notion of how to do that, but one or more of the Sunset building projects books have something like that in them.) Under the bridge to the pergola and all around on the flat low ground, plant ferns and lots of bulbs and other flowers that will give a wild carpet look to the low ground, and help to emphasize the pergola as it rises from that low ground covering. Hang a couple of wooden swings inside the pergola, and place a pot or two with a somewhat vertical plant at its entrance, and one that's very low and traipsing. Do the same thing with pots at the point where the bridge meets the path. Martha Gonzales will look wonderful on your hillside, Sammy. It might be nice to repeat her near the path as you go down, especially given her height. Or consider her for some pots going down alongside the path too... Lots of choices! The possibilities are endless! Have fun! Best wishes, Mary

You're in luck Mermaid! Lady Banks is salt and humidity tolerant. LOL! Florida is really beautiful and as the name implies many completly gorgeous flowers will grow there :) I've only lived really close to the beach once. (Half moon Bay San Fran) I loved the sound and the smell of the ocean. I think I would like Florida better tho. I'm not much for chilly weather and Half Moon was too cold for me. nice, how neat! I love pass along plants and plants with a history! I get a lot of my native/rarish plants from a nursery called Weston Gardens. It has a ton of history as a rich man's party place back in the day. They turned it into a nursery/historical demo garden thing. If I had the money I'd rehab an old Victorian house and re-create the gardens in a minute! PJ

I'm sorry to say, plectrudis, that Souvenir de St. Anne's is gone, and it was difficult since it's such a healthy and wonderful shrub. Unfortunately, the sun even when it was in the seventies shriveled the blooms in less than a day. I probably would have kept it anyway except that I had William R. Smith to place somewhere, and I didn't want to put it back in Tea Rose Row where it died the last time. I thought I had another place but then decided it would crowd La France and hang over into a narrow walkway there. I do find the flowers of WRS infinitely more beautiful and wanted to give it the best possible chance to survive this time. The days of roses flourishing here just anywhere are gone.

All the plants have buds and Munstead Wood is the first to bloom-- 9 flowers have opened and 9 more developing. I gave them water and nothing else for weeks, then as they started getting bigger, sprinklings of bloodmeal and half-doses of fish emulsion. At some point I tried giving them a bit of diluted potassium with indeterminate results. (Maybe because I got muriate of potash instead of the potassium chloride, sulfide or whatever it is that's supposed to be better?) Once I gave them water left over from cooking beans (no salt) and they seemed to like it fine. Sorry I don't have any pictures of the whole plants yet, but they do seem like they are taking off. Though Munstead Wood, Lady of Shallot, and Jude the Obscure are growing with big open spaces between canes-- I don't know if these are the reported David Austin octopus arms, or pest damage to terminal shoots that would otherwise fill out the center of the bush, or particular growth habit in Houston, TX weather, or if it's just something it'll grow out of after a year and some pruning. The other, younger two plants that I've messed with the least, Lady Emma Hamilton and Brother Cadfael, have much more attractive foliage and look more bushy/shrubby. LEH has sixteen buds already and is nicely rounded, while BC, who has been growing tall thick canes and took the longest to leaf out and bud, looks more like a sturdy column shape. They are all at least two to three and a half feet off the soil level. So far the scent on MW is very sweet, like berry candy and rosewater (rather than dried rose petals), and seems stronger after a fish emulsion feeding. Can't wait for the others! Thanks to everyone for being present on this forum. I've been going through a lot of posts and learning a bunch!