Photo 1: Some sort of Ferocactus, possibly more than one species (or maybe it's just variation. The one at the front strikes me as being built a little differently). The one near the front is showing the rib shape typical of a young Ferocactus. Photo 2: Maybe Echinocereus. Photo 3: Echinocactus grusonii. Reasonably confident about this one. It's a little hard to tell at this age, and in this case knowing the genus is enough to know how to treat them. Just carry on doing what you're doing, they look fine.

Newish to SA by way of the DoD. Just saw this posting. Bought a new house and have been going crazy with landscaping, granted it seems to be a tad different than what you all do. Is this once a year or other? If once a year, would there be interest next uear for any of the following: Goji berry Honeyberry Blueberry southern Pink lemonade blueberry Brown turkey fig Everbearing fig Pineapple guava Named versions of dragonfruit (purple haze, American beauty, and another. May have other types ready to propagate by then) Pomaagranet If I can acquire good root stalk I have some great, sweet kumquats, sutsumi. Can not guarantee Meyers lemon would be ready. Loquat And this bush that grow REALLY good here. Stayed green all year and has maroon/reddish thistle haired type of flower or something. Pretty sure I can root cuttings as this thing grew from 2ft to about 5ft in 8 months And if interested may pull up rootball for this black leaved crape myrtle. It was planted in yard, thought it was dead in the winter and mowed over 3" new growth. Just seeing as some of my stuff may take time to graft or root.

The third plant on the top row in the freezer bag is Salvia chiquita. It is cold hardy , xeric once established, give it afternoon shade, am sun. I think I had some in afternoon sun and morning shade. I keep it on a flat area, because it does seed out quite a bit if you are on hill country limestone. People on clay do not have this problem. Beautiful 2' blooms that bees and butterflies fight over Blackfoot daisy is from me, I think. The Next plant in square 4" pot is Phlox pilosa, I think. Takes sgae and sun, will spread. I have it under an Oak tree on the east side and it is spreading out to the sun and further inro the shade. Great dry shade gound cover. I never water it. Salvia regla is from me also. It like shade and sun also . t is cold hardy and . Mine got to be 8 ' but I had to cut it back and now it is a very bushy 3'. It is a Big Bend sage , probably from the wetter mountain canyons. I like planting it where it gets afternoon light from the rakingsun in the fall because it will be starting to bloom really soon and it is such a treat when the setting sun hits it in the otherwise shady area. It LIGHTS UP. the blooms are timed with the hummingbird migration. Sedum palmeri is from me also. It will root easily . No hormone , no water, just stick it in the ground. It can take fast draining. It is hardy to 0 they say. Mine lived through the freeze and THE BIG D without water. It looked like hell but came right back. I think you got the first of the two Agave , The agave univittatta AKA Agave lophantha from Gardenlover1 after the swap on roselees "parking lot". This is a whole family of agave and are a very confusing trying to tell which is which because their is a high amount of variability and intergrading between species. I got a triple Datura that looked like yours from Mamachile. Hey, Dona, Rebecca was telling me you were having expensive well drilling bid . If you want to talk to me about Rainwater harveting, feel free to email me. My email is listed on my page. We are 100% dependent on rainwater. Mara

I have only read a few of those books, one of which (The World According to Garp) I actively disliked. From what I know of them, they are not what I personally would choose to read during hard times, especially a prolonged period of hard times. I might want to read a book or two or three that provided understanding about what I was going through, but mostly I would like to remind myself that times had once been better, and possibly would be again one day. When I am worried and depressed and struggling, I don't want to read that life is all about fear and sadness and endless difficulty, whether those books tell me that patient endurance and courage will eventually see me through, or whether they tell me there's no hope at the end, anyway. So yes, books about hard times, best read in retrospect, when life is a bit more bearable.