Thank you Linda, yup, that's the view from my backyard. It's beautifull. F4F, the tibouchina likes cool weather. Right now, we are having dry heat in the 100s and the flowers don't last at all. They wither by noon. In the fall, when temperatures are nice and cool, the flowers last up to a couple of days and the shrub covers itself in neon purple flowers. Tropicalnut, Arizona is WAY too hot and dry. It will be a big change. Even though some areas in southwestern AZ are close to being sub-tropical desert, they get very little rain and have lots of water limitations. Sure, you can grow plumeria, royal poinciana, bismarckia nobilis...but there are the downsides. Tucson is another warm region of AZ. They are more conservative about their water and garden with mostly natives and near-natives, while Phoenix is more deliberate about their water usage and have spans of green lawn, which is something quite rare in Tucson. I'd say if you want to grow tropical stuff, move to Hawaii where you won't have any limitations in water and won't ever have to worry about frosts.

I can't wait to see your new beauty, Mike!!! You guys are really going to twist my arm. :-) and buy one of these!!! Summer present to myself? Right Mike? Instead of dinner.., new trees!! Waiting for this beauty... I'm happy for you!!, Kemistry.. I am ready to repot my " Chicken Feet". It's doing great!! Thank you again. Hopefully it will bloom for me. How are yours doing? Mike? Take care, Laura

I actually enjoy waiting - it increases the suspense! One swap I waited three months for a package from Japan, and it was sooo worth it! These packages are very much like Christmas, and I guess they bring out the child in us at times! Normally, I would try to figure out which senders have had their packages received so that I could narrow my choices of which person is sending to me, but I've been a bit swamped with work lately (which is good, for a change). Lars

FINALLY after months of asking my PB to please repair the issues of my pool, they're here. Well...one guy is here. My cracking beach entry, my blotchy colored deck, my suck en deck (because of a leak), spa steps no longer attached because of the deck that sunk and big long crack in the deck from the leak. They are out there right now fixing my beach entry. They went and got some flag stone that is the same as what I used for my coping. They are chipping away at the un submerged pebble sheen and will then put the flagstone in to replace it. I will still have my "sandy beach" colored pebble sheen in the beach, just the very top of the entry will be the flagstone. The rest of my pool is Tahoe Blue. They seem to want to blame us for the leak under the deck. They had cemented a pipe in for us, for a shower out by the pool cabana. They said from the stress of screwing in the shower pipe-head in, that it stressed the PVC pipe (3 or so feet from the shower) and it became unglued. Give me a flippin' break! That cemented in pipe has not moved! You would need a sledge hammer to do any damage. The cement around the pipe isn't cracked at all. We didn't even touch that pipe until 4 months after it was put in. They also want to blame the blotchy cement on splashing water on the deck. I know that water discolors cement but, our deck has NEVER been even or the same in color. In fact 1/2 of the deck is white. We chose a dark beige for the color and paid a lot of money for color. I don't know what they can say about the cement being so white. Like regular cement turns when it's dry. I showed them a path from the house to the pool, that a cement guy put in for us. Someone that we used, not our PB. We did not color the path and it's the same color as the white part of our deck. If I knew the name of the cement company I would call them and ask someone to come out and look at it but, I can't get the number from my PB. I've been doing a search on the internet for companies, because I remember what the site looks like but, I haven't found it yet. I've stressed quite a lot about my PB not ever coming back. They stood me up several times, told me they'll be there, blah blah blah but, never showed up to do the work. Promised me it'll be done before my July 4th party and today is the 13th. They said they were coming last Wed. I I called them...no reply, no show. I text messaged and said "are you coming or not?" I finally after a few more days got a text from them saying they'll be here this Saturday, Sun. at the latest. They didn't show up yesterday so I asked about when they thought they would be here so I didn't have to be on hold and stuck here all day....and they said (after I waited all day yesterday) they'll call me later and let me know what time they'll be here sunday. I never heard back from them yesterday so I figured they were going to stand me up again. Of course they called me from my front gate at 11:30am. No warning of we're on our way or we'll be there at a certain time. Never again will I use a pool builder (sorry to the good reliable PBs out there, cuz I know you're out there. I just happened to choose the wrong PB. Sorry if I seem to be only complaining but, this is the only place where some people will understand where I'm coming from. Despite my complaints, I love my pool. I just don't like being strung along by an unreliable builder.