Both of you are lucky, I saw 31-32 repeatedly last winter out in Poway. All of my bananas lost all there leaves at some point over the winter, the only one not to lose some stem was the ice cream. What I think was a mysore got taken down nearly to the ground. add to that the 102+ degress temps from last week and it seems that our little corner of Poway gets both ends of the extremes. The heat seemed to bother the recovering mysore, but all the better established plants (ice crea, goldfinger and an apple) shrugged it right off.

I live in Central Texas (8B) also and I have had good luck with Aloe Maculata. It is also tolerant of wet cold conditions that we get sometimes in Texas. This winter I covered my aloe maculata for the 12 degree cold snap. My A. arista and variegata survived nicely covered up. Those two need to be in an elevated stack of rock. A. peglerai , A. striatula, A. striata, A brevifolia are reputed for being good here. I am still raising the babies and treating them sweetly. I did do some protecting this year. It was an exceptionally cold and wet year. Aloes are chancey and take some care, but I have kept my A. maculata alive for 20 years. There are small agaves that can take the shade , sun and cold. Agave bracteosa and Agave paryii var truncata is a great one and it will grow in the confined area. The ghost plants and Echeveria runyonii is a good one. I have had good luck with sedum palmerii (bullet proof), graptopetalum paraguense, X sedoveria in that situation. I am just west of austin (8B) and I have GOBS of sedum palmeri that you can get from me for nada iuf you come and get it or for postage. Email me if you are interested. Sedum mexicanum and lenophylum texanum is a good one. Dykias are a good one. Look at Yuccadoo.. They are a texas mail order place. They have decent descriptions and their species have been tested for Hemphill and Giddings Texas. You don't have to buy from them because much of what they have is available in the better Austin nurseries if you are close to here, but Yuccado is a good place to start familiarizing yourself. You will want to bring in some peagravel or decomposed granite and some rocks to give some elevation for some of the species. Especially if you are in the famous clay that some Central Texas areas have. WE can rain pretty heavy here and the walkway will push its water onto the strips. This will definitely matter with the more dry loving aloes. Rocks and sharp rock mulch can make an immediate visual interest and one CAN"T kill them. Here is a link that might be useful: Yuccado

Well, there is a reference--of sorts, Leslie! It's about 60 years worth of "stuff"--in my head! Been doing this for a long, long time! When I was only 10 or 11 years old I was out--barefoot--waiting on my parents' perennial customers and digging up field-grown plants for them! Have always loved green growin' things! Also helped in my Uncle's greenhouses, right next door, when they got busy and the "grown ups" needed help! My brother in Illinois--even older than me!--still grows/sells bedding plants and veggies for a couple months in spring! The first actual gardening "experience" I remember was when I was three years old and sat down on the grass next to our huge veggie garden to eat some peas, which were what was next to the grass---and I SAT on a bee! My first bee sting!!! But I was already helping plant the "big seeds" by then, so "gardening" goes back pretty much as far as I can remember! Glad to answer any groundcover questions you may have, but if you have specific questions you'll get more answers, from more people, if you start a separate thread about "whatever." Since everybody tends to recommend the things they like the best, you get more variety when more people respond. It's not unusual for variegated perennials to be less vigorous than "plain" ones, but that's not at all always true. Just depends on the plant and the variety. If you're looking at something specific, google for it online and look for comments from "real people." Obviously if you just look at the info from the places that sell it, they're only gonna tell you the "good" things about it! For instance! They will almost never use the word "invasive!" They'll sometimes say something about a plant "spreading," or "covers quickly," but they'll seldom "warn" you that it's going to Eat Your Yard! Same thing's true for plants that are less vigorous or questionably hardy! All they want to do is sell it--and after that it's your problem! So for things you don't really know about, I recommend posting here or searching other forums and such for "user" information. About the Euonymus! That's a woody plant that's usually sold in the nursery rather than the perennial department, so I don't know a whole lot about it! BUT, I do know this! There was one in here when I bought this house. This'll tell you what I think of it! I just looked thru all my albums for a pic of it--and I never took any! The best one I can find is this--which is really a pic of my yellow columbine! The Euonymus is the thing behind the columbine that's going up the wall and up the gutter in the background! When I moved in here, "that thing" was sprawling all the way out, half way in front of the steps in the pic! It was going ALL the way up the wall---and it grows UNDER the siding, wrecking it! I cut down most of it, but left a little bit so there'd be something there till I was able to plant what I wanted in that area. I had NO idea how obnoxious it would be! It roots absolutely anywhere the woody stems come into contact with the soil. And it grows FAST, especially in spring! It will grow thru, around, and "under" just about anything! I still have those "little" pieces" of it in there--which I hack back multiple times each year, but I MUST get new siding, and when I do--it's GONE! As a groundcover? Guess it depends on what you're looking for. When I moved in this stuff was a good two feet high, and the best way I could describe what it looked like would be" Sprawly! It IS evergreen, tho even with limited sun, mine tends to sunburn quite easily in winter when it's dormant. I don't know what variety it is, but it is definitely Euonymus fortunei, and since it's variegated it might very well be 'Emerald Gaiety". Based on my experience I wouldn't recommend it unless someone wanted "something" somewhere like on the edge of a rather large yard to just fill in space--and even then I think it would take considerable effort to keep it from spreading all over the place--unless that's what the person wanted. Also, I had no idea about this, but when I was looking up the variety you mentioned I ran into this. Apparently it's considered to be an invasive species in the Midwest and East. With the drier climate I doubt that it would ever get that bad out here, but I really don't know anymore about it! Have I talked you out of Euonymus yet" LOL! Not really trying to if it happens to fit the situation where you were thinking of using it! For cracks in paths/patios, the easiest to grow and most-likely-to-succeed plant is woolly thyme, Thymus pseudolanuginosis (tho it's been reclassified as other species every now and then, over the years!) Easily identifiable because it has leaves that look more grayish than the other green-leafed thymes, and is slightly "fuzzy" compared to the other thymes. It is definitely the most drought tolerant of the thymes, which is a main factor in its being the easiest to grow in cracks. Tolerates foot traffic very well when it's established. Besides that any of the other creeping thymes would work and take foot traffic well, and while Turkish Veronica, Veronica liwanensis, would work, it's usually considerably less "dense" than the thymes, and it seems to me it wouldn't "fill in" as well, or at least would take a lot longer to do it! The leaves on Turkish Veronica are spaced much further apart on the stems than thyme! Depending on how big the cracks are, you could even put something like the 'Chocolate Chip" Ajuga in them! It will definitely tolerate some foot traffic, but would get ratty looking if it was walked on a LOT. There are lots of other things people recommend, and a separate thread I'm quite sure would get you other recommendations. One important thing when you're planting in cracks is to be sure you have some "decent" soil in the cracks that will hold moisture and nutrients. If your cracks were filled by brushing sand into them, you're gonna have a really, really hard time getting something started in there! With the deadheading/cutting back I recommend with the ground covers, it depends on what it is--and what you want it to look like. I have a small yard, so I'm not really trying to "cover ground" so the "groundcovers" I have are kept in fairly small patches here and there--I have them because I like the way they look! I love to walk around my yard just to LOOK, I do it a LOT, and I like it when things look neat without a lot of dead foliage/flowers or sprawly stems, so I do what I need to do to keep things neat. (I also love sitting out there "doing things" so I enjoy doing it! And--it gives me things to give away at the swaps!!!) If someone had a large area that they just wanted "covered" and wasn't too concerned about the up-close-and-personal appearance of the plants, most of the ground covers can just be left on their own to do their own thing! All the pics I posted above are of plants that have grown out after being cut back. Here are some samples of some of those things when they're blooming, showing how floppy looking they can get! First here are some "before" pics of the one area showing the different "winter evolving to summer" color of some of the sedums. 02.23.08 04.08.08 04.25.08 The sedums in those pics were cut back in late summer or early fall. Now here's what the Sedum hybridum against the fence in the second pic looks like when it's just starting to bloom, and as it blooms more, the flowering stems keep getting longer and longer--and when it's done flowering, the dead, brown flowers stay on the stems unless they're cut off. And here's what the 'Dragon's Blood' looks like when it's just starting to bloom. And here's the other little "succulent garden"--the first thing I planted when I moved in here--because EVERYTHING else was covered by either ROCK or sod! This is when everything still pretty much had its "winter" color! I think this is the only pic I have that shows how PINK the 'Tricolor' sedum gets in winter! And here are a couple with the 'Tricolor' blooming. You can see how they're flopping all over everything, and if left that way they would pretty quickly EAT the things growing near them! If the floppy, sprawling look works for you, you don't mind the brown "leftover" flowers--and there's nothing in the area for them to eat, I say let 'em go au naturale! But I don't have the space, and definitely don't like the "left overs" when they're done blooming. So, like everything else, it just comes down to personal preferences! Boulder people are very definitely welcome at the swap--EVERYBODY is welcome at the swap [except for axe murderers! Inside joke from the first swap!], but if you haven't checked in on the swap thread yet, post to let us know you're planning to come--and you MUST PM Bonnie so she has your address and can send you her address and directions to her place. Darthr, if you have questions about ANYTHING I've posted above, please let me know. Skybird

Dealing in any other way than credit card, paypal and the like is prohibitively expensive unless we are talking about very large orders. To give an example, my bank is asking for a euro 50 fee for the transfer of amounts up to 500 euros or so...Three roses which is a reasonable amount will thus cost at the minimum 45+15+50 euros... I have had experience exchanging emails in english with Le Roseraie du Desert and they have been very helpful and easy to talk to (they are Americans if I understand correctly). They accept paypal I gather. I was about to order from them when I needed to be hospitalized last year. Last time I checked Bierkreek the only payment method available was bank transfer or cash which prohibited me from dealing with them. I don't know if this has changed but I doubt it. Additionally you had to email them your request, and they would come back with availability and the shipping costs quote. Not very efficient I think. I've had very bad experience with a couple of german nurseries which never responded to my emails. For one of them I left a bad review in HMF and discovered I was not the only one with such a bad experience. What I like to do is go online to an english language site, put a few roses in my shopping basket, check out, pay with my credit card both the rose price and the shipping cost, receive a confirmation email and be done with it. Anything more complicated than this is a hassle. Contact with the nursery should only be needed if one needs to clarify something or resolve a problem, not for a business as usual order. If contact is needed I expect this to be conducted promptly by email and in english, not because I happen to speak the language but because it is the de facto lingua franca for international commerce. I don't expect to have to use a translator nor jump through the machine translation hoops. So if anybody has any recommendations for such nurseries not in the UK with a good selection of OGR's and the like and which will ship across the EU, they are welcome. PS. Bierkreek seem to be preparing a proper e-commerce site. When they have it ready I will be pleased to try it. PS2. The Lens nursery was mentioned. Below the link to their terms and conditions. Please note, on top of the payment method problem and uknown (and possibly very steep shipping costs judging from their costs for shipping to nearby places like the UK and Germany), their disclaimers about shipping and state of plants on arrival. This is what I call bad business practices and I would never buy from them. Lens nursery (Belgium) terms & conditions