Maybe you could cover it with a dome of chicken wire till it recovers and grows a bit more recognizable? Though if the dogs find it so tasty, that might not deter them. My only wild guess is so wild even I know not to mention it. 8-)

Suzi, the closest freeway is the 210 which runs thru northern Claremont, near the RSABG. The 10 runs thru south Claremont and is also a convenient way to get to the botanic gardens. Kermit, GNN Claremont does have its own propagator (Antonio Sanchez) but they also order and sell plants from other nurseries such as Suncrest (great for Rosa minutifolia, one of my favorite roses, and also for the blue curls cultivar Midnight Magic), El Nativo Growers, Native Sons, Moosa Creek, etc. Just this past week I was at the nursery and bought some bouteloua gracilis 'Blonde Ambition' and white California poppies grown by Native Sons as well as a ceanothus 'Diamond Heights' grown by El Nativo, Melica californica grown by Suncrest, seacliff buckwheat and sea dahlia grown by Moosa Creek plus monkey flowers, creeping wild rye, and another Saliva dorrii Gayle Nielson grown by RSABG. Ordered thru RSABG 5 one gallon size of Salvia 'Celestial Blue' (this one along with S. namaensis, S. melissodora, and S. Teresa are the most prolific bloomers in my garden). Moosa Creek has them in stock, so I expect that is where they will get them. I sure wouldn't mind seeing even more goodies available, particularly in salvias.;) The one I want most that I don't already have is Salvia mohavensis. Btw, I don't think RSABG toots its own horn enough--lots of scientists there, and horn-tooting doesn't appear to be in their genes!;) I'm just a happy member of the garden (certainly no scientist), love to grow native plants, and will gladly tell others about my experiences. Melissa

I didn't install the irrigation myself, but it's definitely not spaghetti tube. More like the 1/2" tube (might even be 1"), with holes in it (is that what built in emitters are?). All of what I'm learning here is why I'm really glad I'm taking this into my own hands now, instead of relying on others who may not have had the best approach... There are three lines about 1/2 foot apart that runs through the area where all the plants are in. The more I'm learning, the more I realize I must have been drowning the poor things. :( Are you recommending I cut it back now, in order to preserve the plant? Despite all three of them being quite infected looking at their bases, they are still flowering, and their upper portions don't look so bad. I'd be sad to cut them off now and miss more blooms, but if it's what's best for the plant then I will. As far as cutting back to the ground, is that literally exactly what I would do? Or leave a few inches of the plant left? The details are really helpful for me. Thanks for the tip about watering the pomegranate! I'm very new to gardening and really appreciate all the helpful advice everyone!

Whew. Tough watching that, even. Can't even begin to imagine what those poor people are going through. Heartbreaking. And as always, so many good people are working to hard to help others. I didn't--I couldn't--watch it all day. But off and on. Just feel so helpless. Only thing I can think to do is donate to Red Cross (and pray). Anyone have any other good ideas or better ideas? And I'm no weather expert, but it does look like it has come far enough inland that it very likely will hit Louisiana next. Pray it lessens and miraculously more or less peters out by then. We had a pretty low-key day. Church all morning, then our daily Sudokus (lol), doing the garden walk-around with some banana peppers, a few tomatoes and 8 cucumbers, another couple pints of pickles tomorrow (even with just my 3? cucumbers, I've got 23 pints of pickles so far--guess I'll be giving away about 20 jars of pickles to someone.) And we're eating cucumbers nearly every day, too. Guess what, though; with the peppers, tomatoes and cucumbers, potatoes and onions, our grocery bill has been significantly less in the past month. Since we're eating so many of those things, well, we just don't eat as much of anything else. Very cool. (And the yummy summer squash our neighbor has brought us.) Of course, we're getting a little tired of all those particular things, but honestly. We just pretend this is all we've got to eat, so we do. And spice things up by having other wonderful main courses with them. Dawn, I was telling GDW about your sleepless night and watching the floods, as well as chiming in the assist the gardening folks. I said I expect you'll be tired and dragging for a few days with this horrible tragedy. Understandable, given Tim's occupation and your son's--and hence, your life. But I do thank you for the blackberry words and flowers of good smells. This brug has me so enchanted, I said to GDW--really, if it doesn't survive the winter (this one is one of the most hardy, to 7B), small price to pay for this amazing small tree. I wouldn't hesitate a bit to plant them every year at $20 a pop--or like you said, from seed, or cuttings. My buddy Scott is going to take some cuttings this fall and keep them in his green house for both of us. GDW agreed, and next year we think we'll put in 4-6 of them here and there. This one gets about 4 hours of full sun. from about 11 to about 3-4. I worry about it being too hot, but it seems to have been very happy. And we do have some other areas that get at least 4 hrs of sun. What a smashing plant they'd be in this big yard. Ditto with the daturas. Okay. So PM is a fact of life down here. I'm gonna skip the PM plants next year. Period and that's all there is to it. (not counting veggies) I'm gonna go with stout and sturdy and boring standbys! For sure, marigolds for one in the sun. We'll throw in tithonia the few places there's lots of sun. I'm building my new list. Laura Bush petunias, YES. Verbena bonariensis, YES. I love my herbs. . . I have 5 rosemary plants at various places in the yard, to see which of them will survive. Have my lemon balm that I love, the sage is good, the thyme and the oregano. But the beautiful thing this year were the 4 o'clocks, nicotiana, datura, and now the brug, which are all near the deck--the smell in the evenings was amazing. I'm going to have all those things all over the yard. I know you have warned me about 4 o'clocks, but oh my are they performers. Pretty and bright and perky and SMELL so good. I do have a really aggressive one in a near bed, and I pulled and whacked the heck out of it a month ago just to show it who was the boss. LOL. Love that it'll come right back, and it has. That is a GOOD thing! Had lots of plant failures this year. . . and some great successes. Like every single other year. I'm looking forward to yanking out cucumbers (which have developed some sort of fungal or bacterial thing, of course, but they're still strong and young enough that I have more coming on. So will call it quits next week. So amazing, though, that I didn't plant them from seed until first of July and they've been producing so much that I have had enough to be good for this year, and it's only the end of August. Besides, they need to leave so GDW can proceed with his veggie bed enlargement/renovation project. We all know life is so fragile and precious, but it takes the floods in Texas to bring it to our minds. Blessings to all of you.