Good work! You certainly will be rewarded by more than simply the beauty arising from your efforts for the environment. I tried to do my part. A friend lost 12 of her Yaupon 'nana' due to our summer and following winter drought. She is not much for taking care of and watering her landscape. Yaupons are usually very tolerant of drought, but she also had not cut back the nearby dormant hosta, so her yaupons also suffered by getting to much shade from those dormant overgrown hostas this last winter. Yesterday, I searched all over town and found her nine of the nicest Encore Autumn 'Royalty' azaleas. They are now in their first full bloom and I wanted to pull out her dead yaupons and put down the bed for the azaleas this morning, and then easily plant the azaleas into that circular bed later today during the cool down of the beginning evening hours. Not to be, the friend and her DH had other plans, so all I did today was take her azaleas out of my vehicle and put them in dappled shade under my mature Scarlet oak tree. After that the only other thing I did was go to a nursery and purchase about 21 cubic feet (six bags of 3.5 cubic feet each) of compacted dry Sphagnum peat moss for later either creating the bed for those azaleas or for taking to my daughters house in a few weeks to mix with the sand on top of a clay hardpan base soil in her front landscape bed. Except for watering my landscape (we are still in a drought,) I have not done any thing else for earth Day. At least earth day is not the only day that we can help "the black earth live again."

Wow - nice pictures and you have to feel satisfied at having lots of stuff done. BUT --- I sure would love to have your 'clean-up' for my compost bin. I have a hoop house made of pvc with rebar going through that used to be a chicken house. We covered it with wire mesh and it is now my compost bin. Varmints keep eating through the wire mesh but I really don't care any more --- they have to eat too. It feels good to have a place to put all of our food waste. Right now is canning time for me so I have lots of tomato/fruit peelings, etc.

Louise is a pretty rose. I couldn't get Bonica to bloom here- not cold enough. Last night and tonight I walked around smelling the hawaiian gingers and plumerias and watching a little bat fly in my yard at dusk. He always comes and does a few circles and then moves on. Today was cooler by a few degrees about 88F with a little less humidity but still nice. The dry heat the rest of the week won't be so bad after all and the weekend looks good for the annual street fair in old town Orange. Clubs set up food booths themed for different countries and there are crafts and music. The people go in and out of the pubs and the antique shops are open in the day. We are getting ready to set up our Victorian Parlor in the park for a Civil War event at Central Park Huntington Beach. We provide a big candle lit tent and seating for the Saturday night dance with punch and goodies. I love doing it every year. Everyone's in costume and people are dancing or chatting in the parlor. At night the campfires are lighting up the camps and people play music. I like to bring roses for the table. I don't know what I'll have blooming for Saturday. Last year it was Charlotte with Ambridge in a big vase by the lemonade. Perle d Or and Gruss an Aachen on the punch table, and a vase of Francois Rabelais on the side table in a silver vase next to a big bowl of red and purple grapes. I always like to have some real Victorian roses there if I can. I'm just hoping the weather will be kind so that I'll have something nice to bring. Last year I was so busy making food, gathering roses, and getting myself dressed and there that I forgot my camera.

OcalaMark, that's a great harvest! @Tinae101, I had a terrible aphid infestation on my red noodle beans when they were young. They were covered so you couldn't even see the stems. (They'd make a great trap crop, seriously. There were not many aphids on anything else in my yard, because they were ALL on the noodle beans.) Despite this, the noodle beans survived. They just sat there, not growing, and the leaves were pale and yellowing from the stress. After weeks of this the ladybugs finally came in force and ate the aphids. The noodle bean plants promptly took off. The tallest ones are touching the top of my 7' trellis, and they just started producing this week. Gotta love tough plants. :-)