And yet those natives just keep getting better and better. Sorry if it sounds like climate bragging, but winter is our season of rebirth here in coastal northern California, and things are just jumping. I've already seen the first Califoria poppies blooming, (along with seeding a whole hillside of them on this latest spec home landscape), and shrubs like the Silk Tassle, Garrya elliptica are looking fantastic right now with their long dangling earrings of white tassles against verdant green foliage. The first of the Ceanothus/California lilacs are also popping, and I have been munching on the Miner's Lettuce, a local native that can actually be kind of weedy in a garden setting, for weeks now. The flowering season will just continue to get more and more colorful through about the end of April, and the Baby Blue Eyes and several species of Clarkia I planted out from 4 inch pots from Annie's Annuals here in Richmond back in December are already bursting into bloom as well. The real possibility of severe water rationing starting later this spring is still threatening us locally, but we even have some 2 days of rains forecast to hit tomorrow, ending this unseasonably warm spell with low 70'sF here in Berkeley. I spent the day up in Sonoma County yesterday wholesale nursery shopping, and enjoyed the scenery immensely, especially the green hillsides with the massive Valley Oaks dotted here and there. I must say, a lot of the Coast Redwoods planted along the Hwy 101 freeway medians did look rather stressed out from several subpar rainfall years, but those redwoods that had planted themselves did not appear to be suffering. The first of the flowering plums are also bursting out in bloom here, as well as all the non-native Acacia dealbata and many varieties of Magnolia soulangeana, M. denudata, M. stellata, etc. The first of the South African Leucadendrons are also getting ready to pump up the volume as well. It sure would be tough to be looking out at gray skies and dirty snow and below freezing temps in comparison to our local conditions, but then again, it isn't exactly tropical swimming in the ocean weather here either, but all in all, a gorgeous California winter's day, and the promise of some much needed rains. And I can't get too worked up about nurseries pigging back on this thread to self-promote, even if it is prohibited. I understand the underlying sense of feeling a bit desperate, what with the slow down in spending, but come on! Be a little more subtle about how you do it, and I bet it would be more successful! It does seem to show that there is no one doing what Spike used to do with yanking threads into the ether...

More about our birds. . . How we came to have the parakeet is a story in itself. Mother was out in the garden hanging up the laundry one sunny day and out of nowhere a blue & white parakeet flew right down and landed on Mother's shoulder. She nibbled lovingly on Mother's ear and mother said, "Well hello there" and the bird said, "Ooooh. Hello!" And Mother said, "So, who are you?" The bird replied, "Pretty Bird!" So, she kept her name. She never flew away after finding a nice home, having no desire to try living out in the big free world ever again. We never did find out from whence she came. I would like to add about the Mexican Love Bird. . . . . .that after cursing out the preacher and telling him to "Go to Hell!", and saying things like "Well, -uck a duck!", our love bird never said any of the really foul swear words ever again. Mother said it must have just been a cleansing thing for her, but I have always wondered just what Mother did to make her "repent" and come clean.??? And as for our parakeet, Pretty Bird? After her jello bath, she began saying, "Oooooh, Pretty Bird. Pretty Bird is a dirty bird!" We kids got so much fun out of her. She loved Orange Jell-O, not just for bathing but for eating it as well. She especially loved it when mother made it into a salad by adding grated carrots and chopped walnuts. Yum yum! She would walk across the table and sample everything. If she found something she particularly didn't like, she would make a mess of it and have a fit! So afterward she had to kept up during meals. She would fuss and squawk at us from her cage, demanding to be loosed at once! As you said, covering her cage was helpful in quieting her down. She would then say, "Good night Pretty Bird!" which would then of course, set us all into a round of giggles. ~Annie

to grow tomatoes upside down its better to use 5 gallon buckets. You cut a small hole in the bottom and place a sheet of newspaper or a coffee filter over it. Fill the bucket with a good potting soil, shaking occasionally so the soil will settle. lay another sheet of newspaper or coffee filter on top of the soil. cut another small hole in the bucket lid. Put the lid on and turn the bucket over. cut a small hole in newspaper or coffee filter so you can plant the tomatoe. I plant them when they are pretty small as its easier to get them in. Water daily until it get a nice size then flip the bucket over and hang it up. Preferable to a heavy clothline pole or something strong enough to hold it. You can remove the lid and plant something in the top or you can leave the lid on. Water well until the water starts running out the bottom. No staking is needed and tomatoes never lay on the ground. I am doing this method this year. I'm doing two different buckets, hanging them on the old kind of clothline pole that's like a large T. I put chicken wire loosely up the main pole and am growing cucumbers up the pole. So far everything is doing good. Happy Gardening, Gemfire

I got a Clethra alnifolia (wild type, not a cultivar) in March. It has so far done very well in the 5 gallon pot I put it in. I'll be planting it in the ground whenever it finally starts getting cooler here (so that I won't have to water every day). It covered itself in hundreds of tiny blooms in June/July, but didn't start opening any until August. I think that's later than typical for Clethra, though. When it did finally start opening, I liked that only a few of the "spikes" of flowers (can't think of the proper name for that flowering arrangement off the top of my head...botany was two years ago!) at a time. Since it didn't open all of them at once, it's still blooming now and still has some yet unopened buds to keep it blooming for a while longer. It's got a really lovely scent that's not overpowering. The only thing I dislike about it is that it's got a very scrawny habit...but that very well could be because it's been grown in a pot since it was a seedling. I think the Eleagnus the previous owners of this house planted next to the steps is going to meet an untimely demise so that the Clethra can take its place and next year I'll be able to smell it from the front porch when it blooms. I've been wanting an excuse to kill that Eleagnus, but I've been focusing most of my energy so far on trying to kill all the Jap. honeysuckle in my yard since it's got berries and the Eleagnus doesn't. Anyway, that's been my short experience with Clethra alnifolia...not sure how it would fare in your neck of the woods but it's been a very low-care, no muss no fuss kind of plant for me so far. It does not seem to be bothered by dry spells of two or three weeks, and I haven't seen any signs of disease or stress. As far as wildlife value, one reason I wanted it was because the Georgia Wildlife Federation says, "Wildlife Benefits: Flowers provide nectar to bees, hummingbirds, and butterflies. Seeds are eaten by a variety of birds and small mammals." Still waiting to see seeds and see what kind of "variety" of animals will visit.