I'm glad you like looking at my plants :-). FlowerLady: the veggies grew well because we had suitable weather for them during the summer: light rain every day. In fact, I have had several crops planted in the same beds. Now as we're approaching cold and dry season, I'm planting potatoes there. Will follow-up with some photos when I'm in Dalat again. jkom: Vietnamese food is rich in vitamins, I think, as it contains many kinds of vegetables in the recipes. We always have at least three kinds of food on our table: meat/first stew (or cooked in similar style), stir fry vegetables and vegetable soup. Of course we change the meat/fish or vegetables every meal, but it's most likely those are the main "courses" of our Vietnamese diet. I'm glad that you like our food. I like Bun Thit Nuong, too. It's delicious especially when you have the right "nuoc mam/fish sauce" mixture! Wow, my mouth waters as I type this LOL. Annette, my Medinilla is doing very well but hasn't produce any blooms yet. I had been keeping it in partial shade but last month when we were at a restaurant and seeing their medinilla loaded with blooms was in full sun, I moved mine out onto our front porch. It sufferred a few leaf burn. I don't know how it is now because I've returned to our Saigon home for 10 days now. But I hope it's OK. Here's a pic taken a while back. About two more weeks and I will start the daylily seeds, Annette. I'll update you regularly how I'm doing with them. Xuan

Glad you enjoyed it. I just updated the landscaping project slide show with a little more work that was done this year. I just had to rip out part of my "north fence border" garden so the the well digger's could get in to get my dried up well going again. So, no good pictures of that in the late season. They are almost done so hopefully I can get all the daylily & iris, etc back in with enough time to root good before winter. When I dug them I left the roots as undisturbed as possible and just put them all in big pots so hopefully they will adjust quickly.

That was great watching the slide and then going and seeing all the flowers up close... Thank you so much for spending your time and doing such a great job! Dena

I looked at the Sunset spread and the SFGate spread and her own design site to try to figure out where she's storing the perishables, herbflavor. There are a lot of things to like about this space - and frankly, I think that if you have an oddity and you *own it* people don't notice it. When you're timid, you're vulnerable (says the woman who has an antique mahogany armoire in front of French doors because it was the only wall in the whole second floor that could be forced to accommodate a large functional and very needed piece of furniture). That said, there are some things that I'm not sure would get past an inspector...a range top on a desk? With no fire stop material on the wall alcove (or if there is, I'm not seeing it). I can cook pretty well in pretty tight spaces, but I can't exactly figure out her work flow - zones, triangles, whatever. That island has got to be doing a *lot* of work to make that kitchen even remotely functional. And it would drive me crazy to basically toss all my Tupperware in a bin. I would get rid of that and get some nice glass icebox storage pieces like Grandma used to have and store those on the open shelving. The house does have a lovely flow and a lot of unity between the spaces. The bathroom is very nice (I like the twin tall RH shutter collection pieces to either side of the sink. That's on her design site.) I wish I had the money and ability to find interesting thrift store/flea market/whatever finds. They really do add a lot of character to a space.