I would have thought, from pictures I've seen of sandy beaces, that something like Sandbanks might be less unique elsewhere - it is certainly unique here! I think the trees were some kind of willow so I assume the roots are long enough to reach the water. Perhaps the unique thing is the sandbanks on a fresh water lake instead of a salty ocean. The fresh water would be kinder to things like tree roots than a salty ocean would be. It must be the cold that helps make my wisteria more manageable. I could see doing a gazebo like that in wisteria here if I had the space. It would undoubtedly take a lot of pruning of course. After a few years, the wisteria vines would merge like the trumpet ones have in those pictures and the actual underlying framework of posts would sort of become irrelevant. I've seen some nice older wisterias where the stems have merged to form a ropy-looking woody trunk that is very attractive. Thinking about what would work but be less of a thug, I think I'd opt for Graham Thomas honeysuckle vines. I planted several of them at the longterm care garden several years ago. They were slow to get big but several of them are now substanitial vines covered in lovely scented pale yellow and white flowers in June. I think they would make a great choice, especially as I've never seen their leaves succumb to mildew like many honeysuckle vines do.

They're giving compost away this weekend. here's the blurb: Fall Compost Give Away Location: Halton Waste Management Site - 5400 Regional Road 25, Milton Dates: Friday, September 22 to Monday, September 25 (except Sunday) Time: 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Residents may take up to 7 garbage bags (or equivalent) of compost free of charge. Residents must supply their own bags and shovel. Halton Region will be accepting cash and non-perishable food donations to help support food banks throughout Halton Region

I wanted to thank everyone that attended the swap for their warmth and generosity of sharing your plants/seeds/cuttings, knowledge, and food. Thank you Shari for hosting also. I really enjoyed meeting all of you. I came home with so many seeds and cuttings and plants. I'm googling like crazy on how to take care of the plants and cuttings LOL. abarbie4me2: Here's some care info about the Tower of Jewels you got: Echium Wildpretii container care/ino And for the person that got my hydrangea , these pictures show how yours may look like when it blooms. I'm lucky to get this cutting to bloom: Thanks once again. Gretchen, have a fun and safe cruise. Kachana

To sum it up, there are three huge fires in California right now (along with some smaller ones that are not causing such concern at this time). Two are near Los Angeles and Ventura County. Jeri described them for us. (So very glad you are safe, Jeri!) One of those is just down the road from the dance hall/bar in Thousand Oaks were the mass shooting took place just days ago. I thought of Jim Delahanty who lived in Thousand Oaks, and how grieved he would have been at the recent events. Over 200,000 people have been evacuated from that area, and apparently there have been 2 deaths. The third fire is the Camp Fire in Butte County that destroyed the town of Paradise, CA in under 24 hours. At the current count 23 people died there. If you look on a map, it is located near Chico, and north of Sacramento. It is now 20% contained, but predictions are that unless we get rain, it will burn for the rest of the month. At this point, more houses have burned in this fire than in any other wildfire in California's history, even more than last year's fire in Santa Rosa. If you add in the evacuations there (a more rural part of the state), we are up to a quarter of a million displaced people. We have not yet had any rain in most of the state, and rain is what we need. We will be in dangerous fire conditions until the winter rains start. Here in the Bay Area we have smoky, polluted air, dangerous for babies (there is one in our house) and people with certain medical conditions, but compared to what is going on elsewhere, we are very lucky indeed. Counting our blessings as Thanksgiving Day approaches, and wishing the best for all.