Welcome home Flaurabunda! I'm glad you got to go to enjoy seeing how things grow elsewhere. The lesson learned about your Sego Palm translates perfectly to roses and other plants. Just because you CAN grow something where you are, unless you can make it HAPPY, it will never approach what it is supposed to be and can be. People here where Noisettes, Chinas, Teas, Hybrid Musks and most modern roses flourish, regularly attempt to grow high chill, short season European OGRs, often to very poor results. While they MIGHT be able to get them to grow and actually flower, they never come close to the beauty, health and vigor they are supposed to express where they are suitable. Once you've seen any plant in its splendor, the forced, unhappy specimen which simply limp along are never satisfactory again. Time is too compressed, resources too precious to waste them on pale imitations of gorgeous, happy examples. Kim

Hehe....one thing's for sure; my roses will never be trod upon by alligators.

Well, at least not for a few more years. Many northern areas are finding their climates have warmed almost a full zone in just the past few years, changing migration patterns, habitats, invading weeds and indigenous plants..Kim

Visit Louisana in August. Wear polyester clothing. Shower three times a day. Wish you could shower more. Weeds still grow in August, but they grow more vigorously then than in early May.

Visit in late October. Same weeds from August are still growing. Bugs that were small in May, have been growing all summer.

Other 'nature' events that don't make the tourist brochures:

Buckmoth caterpiller weeks: look up and if the oaks are defoliated, the buckmoths are out and chomping. Be careful they don't fall onto you as the spines on their back leave two rows of painful stings.

Formosa Termite weeks: swarms are so dense at night that you have to keep the lights inside your house off to keep them from coming indoors. It will remind you of looking out your more northern window at falling snow around a street light at night.

Love bugs weeks: when you spend hours removing them from the front of your car before they etch the paint.

June: when you'd kill for a good fresh local tomato, but the tomatoes have produced and it's too hot for all but creole tomatoes. And all tomatoes will have to be replanted in September for a fall crop.

Ann, thanks for the romp down "Memory Lane"! Growing up in Alabama and Miami, I thankfully left all those sorts of things behind me when me migrated west to California. I do NOT miss the furniture growing to the walls from the mildew if set too close to them. I don't miss the Lubber Grasshoppers nor Banana Slugs, nor Walking Catfish; Palmetto Bugs, etc. I HATED showering, drying off and dressing only to open the bathroom door to "rain" on myself and be as soaked as I was when I exited the shower.

I do NOT miss the Copperheads, nor Cotton Mouths, nor any of the other creepy-crawlies left behind. Our Rattle, King, Gopher and Black Racer snakes are good enough! Mosquitoes here, don't have license plates as they do there and, unlike there, HERE they only bother you for a few weeks instead of year-round.

Yup, we have earthquakes and fires; Santa Ana Wind and searing heat, but I'll take all of those to avoid hurricanes and twisters and all the year round fungal rose issues, any day! Kim

Ann,
We admittedly are out of the ordinary in enjoying those conditions. Most of my summer clothing is athletic-wear Dri-fit polyester just for that purpose, and yeah....showering 3 times a day is the norm, even here in Illinois during summer. Get up, shower. Go play tennis or softball, shower. Go work in the yard, shower again.

We came home to a cold front having just passed through, and it's been in the 70's for 2 days and now I'm freezing. I'm wearing a long-sleeved sweater & wool socks to work today--ugh.

I DID notice that every time we stopped somewhere, we had to scrub off the windshield & front of the Jeep. It was just plastered with ex-bugs. I understand now why we saw so few motorcycles! Oh yeah---we were warned about snakes or mites in the Spanish moss, if anyone got the idea that reaching up & grabbing a handful was too interesting to resist.

Flaurabunda, I understand your reaction to the lushness of the terrain and gardens down here in south Louisiana and I agree that people in general are very knowledgable about their gardens and plants--strong attachment to the land is part of the cultural tradition here. The land IS part of one's identity and Cajuns who leave home seem to pine for it and ultimately return. I had the same reaction as you when I first visited, and walks and boat trips around the bayous and swamps still give me a thrill. Yes, if you live here you have to learn ways to survive the heat and humidity, and the abundance of insects. As for snakes and biting critters, you learn never to put your hands or feet where you can't see, and to make a little noise if you're taking a walk so the snakes will flee. For those who prefer living in a place that's teeming with natural life--indeed, to witness the whole cycle of life and death--as opposed to a more sanitized environment, it's wonderful. And there aren't many places where you can so easily grow such magnificent teas, Chinas, and noisettes. If anything, the challenge is to tame their exuberance, which is why we say down here, "Every rose here is a climbing rose." Thanks for saying such nice things about this part of the world!

SpiderLily,
You said it beautifully--that's exactly how I felt.

I've always wanted to visit Louisiana, and your description increases my desire.

Thanks for sharing your experience, and from what others have said it sounds like spring is a good time to go.

I'm in Houston and have been to Louisiana a few times. I quite enjoy it. Our sago palms can also get big, but they can also be a hassle. My parents just had to get a crew in to remove theirs from the front of the house because they could barely get to the door. I guess that was a poor landscaping decision at its core, but AFAIK, you can't really prune them in any useful way.

Myself, I just returned from Seattle, where I found all sorts of little plants in planters downtown that I didn't recognize--weird things. Like Louisianans, we don't have short growing seasons, which is lovely, but it's also like 90 right now, and everything's just baking.

Yeah, it's not pleasant to stumble into one of those. I had a rough enough time replanting ours this spring. I looked like the loser in a cat fight!

We're supposed to be near 100 here today. Apparently I brought the climate back with me in the car somehow.

Well, for those of you interested in visiting, April is *the* magical month when everything's burst into bloom and the weather is temperate. Be sure to visit the Atchafalaya Basin, the largest swamp in the United States, and Lake Martin, one of the great rookeries for migratory birds. And of course, ARS headquarters and gardens are in Shreveport.

SpiderLily,
That's exactly where we were! Our swamp tour was on Lake Martin, and we crossed the Atchafalya River on the way there.

Then it's no wonder you were so thrilled by what you saw, Flaurabunda! Aside from New Orleans, south Louisiana is still undiscovered territory for many Americans. But Lafayette was just voted #1 tastiest town in Southern Living Magazine, so that may change. Artists are finding their way to many of the small towns here, too.

In Louisiana the potatoes cook underground, so all you have to do is pick one out and add butter and salt and pepper.