Far from an expert, but try clickables. I work with two windows: one with GW and the other with photobucket.com. To load up photos from your computer on to photobucket.com, see where it says "Upload Images & Video" then choose files to the right of that. In this case it would be "from: my computer." Click "Choose files" and it should take you to photos you've saved on your computer. Then click on the photo you want to load up to photobucket. Click "Open" and it will load up. You can edit or do other stuff, but I just click on "Skip this step now" listed on the left side over the photo. Now your photo is in your album in photobucket. To load up to GW, click on the box right under the photo (you are still on photobucket.com), then scroll down to the bottom of the page where there are these blue boxes (on mine anyway) and select/click the last one "Generate HTML and IMG code." Then, copy the first one (HTML clickable thumbnails ...) and go to your GardenWeb screen to the "Message" box where you want to post your picture, and paste that info in the box. I can't use the brackets here to show you, but they surround the word "center" at the beginning of the HTML coding and at end. By deleting the words "center," this will flush your photo to the left instead of leaving it in the middle. Examples: Hibiscus flower If you want to add wording to your photo, you can experiment where you want it, e.g., I added Hibiscus flower to the beginning of the HTML code. You would follow the same procedure to add more than one picture (know one can do multiple selection of pictures, but I haven't tried that yet). Also know that you can always use the "Preview Message" here on GW and if you don't like the picture selection or you want to add wording, as long as you don't click on the "Submit Messagge" button, you can always edit. Hope this helps, if not ask and maybe I can explain better.

Hi, Kitkat-- Thanks for the correction/reminder: it's Heirloom Roses, not Heritage. I have yet to see Irish Hope. You're right about Austin's blowing soon and having a droop factor. But I find that if you cut them before they're open--and even if they *are* open, and *immediately* put them in water, they tend to hold up pretty well; of course, not like a hybrid tea, but hey, their flouncy, delicate beauty makes them worth it. As for plant food, at the time I took most of those shots, I was into the rose addiction heavy, and trying every darn mix and brand and method the 'experts' recommended--most some version of expensive organic this or that. In that period, one product I liked a lot is Neptune's Harvest. Since then, I was tragically beset by the nastiest of all rose pests: the Rose Weevil. Looks like a ladybug without spots but with a snout, which it uses to pierce the buds; so, when they bloom, you have swiss cheese blossoms. Or, they suck juice from the stem below the buds so they droop and die. They are horrid critters, and I was forced to turn to liquid systemic Bayer All In One (food, blackspot & insect control). It works fine and makes life easier when you're getting older, lazier, and more slothful (especially with 70 roses to deal with). Long story short, I've learned over the years that roses are tough cookies and don't much care what you feed them. And they keep blooming well even if you forget to be prompt; they just bloom BETTER if you're regular and disciplined. I've seen roses just as beautiful fed with regular Miracle Grow as with any fancy organic approach. I do, however, replenish the soil each winter with good organic compost, epsom salts, alfalfa meal and whatever else I have on hand. Once feeding stqarts, I don't think it matters a whole lot what you give them. My current rose tragedy is an infestation of botrytis blight--a fungal illness which only a very expensive product works on, called Decree; and, thus far, I'm only having limited results with it. I'm about ready to throw in the towel if I can't get rid of it, and get rid of many roses instead. It originated on my most beloved scent rose: Yves Piaget. Smells like roses are supposed to smell. Sorry for going on, but your question got me going over my live with these wonderous blessings. Karen

Just FYI, you should put your Sunset zone. USDA zones are pretty useless in CA. The Sunset Garden Book is the acknowledged "Bible" of all Western gardeners. It doesn't look as if any of your beds are very deep - they all look around 12-18" or so. Consider that you don't want to block your shutters, even if they're only decorative, I'd do a shrub pelargonium, such as this one (to those that have seen my recent February Flowers slideshows in the Gallery, you've seen this photo before). It stays about 18" H/W. They're very floriferous in our climate and don't take too much water, either. You do have to be careful; there is a lot of variation between pelargonium hybrids; some get to a gangly 6' tall. But this one stays neat and compact: I would warn you in that second photo, that spiky leaved clump looks suspiciously like Fortnight Lily, aka Cape Iris, Dietes iridioides (there are two, one white, one yellow-flowered). If it is, once established it gets a full 3' or more around (big, round clump) and takes an axe to remove. It will behave itself if you starve it for water, but if you've got lawn sprinklers, there will be no holding it back. I have narrow beds on both sides of a walkway on the south side of our house. It isn't easy to keep those plants from sprawling outwards. The following plants are ones that have proven well-behaved/upright in these beds in our Oakland hills garden: - Dwarf cannas (variegated ones need some shade or they'll burn) - Kalanchoe - Shasta daisies (deciduous, however) - evergreen bearded iris (in fact, if you live within driving distance of me, I will GIVE you some rhizomes. Mine is an heirloom dark purple iris that multiplies like the proverbial rabbit; if it were edible it would solve world hunger in two years flat) - Aeoniums, some sedums and crassulas - Some of the upright, smaller perennial salvias - Mini or smaller shrub roses, like J&P's Ladies in Waiting. - Liriope (for foliage, but once a year it has very pretty purple flower spikes) - Hellebores: the newer colorful hybrids only. They stay small and neat; like partial sun only. When a bed is not very deep, it's important that you consider a couple of things: 1) It's difficult to "layer" a shallow bed. Normally an interesting garden grouping is done with subtle layers: High/Tall, Medium height, and Low/Short, with each layer providing visual interest for color, shape and texture. 2) Because of this difficulty, you are very dependent upon the ***basic background colors*** of your site. This means the house color, trim color, permanent shrubs, and lawn color. Too many people think of flowers, and forget that flowers are transitory. Here in coastal CA, leaves are EVERYTHING. The most boring beds are those where the flowering plants have green leaves the exact same color as the lawn and/or shrubs. This means that except for the 6 weeks or so your plants are in flower, the rest of the time they fade into one big sea of grass-green. Although this is a wider bed (3' deep, shady side), you can imagine these foliage plants in back of a green lawn and understand how height, texture, leaf shape and color still allow them to show up in contrast to grass: Roses love the Bay Area but many, even in tree standards, grow "out and around". This makes them unsuitable for narrow beds unless you have the "head room" - you don't want to fight rose thorns when you're mowing the lawn, trust me! Roses lean towards the sun; the only tree rose I have that stays quite upright is partially shaded by the plants along the fence so it naturally seeks to grow up and not out like the others do. It's "Intrigue", and as you can see, it has spread over 4' across seeking the sun: As mentioned above, plants lean towards the open spaces, like this long view. The bed on the left is 18" deep; on the right it's 12" deep. The "Intrigue" rose shown above is about 3' past that big flowering pink "Delany Sisters" standard on the LH side: Here is a closer look at the top of the 18" bed against our tan stucco house. L-R, top layer: Variegated golden euonymus, "Double Delight" tea rose, "Delany Sisters" floribunda tree rose, J&P "Ladies in Waiting shrub rose. L-R, bottom layer: green-leaved shrub pelargonium, black flowering Aeonium ("Rubrum", I think), yellow kalanchoe, variegated Iris pallida, ceratostigma groundcover (which I would never plant again, it's impossible to remove): Opposite this stucco wall is a 6' dark wood fence. This is a great backdrop for lighter colored or variegated plants, like the following ones. L-R shows a variegated rhamnus (nice narrow tree, gets to no more than 12') shading orange-flowering clivia (shade plant) at its feet; fancy-leaf pelargonium hybrid "Vancouver Bicentennial" with its reddish-orange flowers; silver liriope; variegated English boxwood: HTH, and good luck!

Second group of photos. Still on the front yard, this bed is between our garage driveway and the fence that borders our property. I have been redoing this bed over the last year. It is centered around a wonderful variegated sweetgum, but the plants I was using were too similar a shade of green. It should look better next year! The front end of this bed. A tall vigorous variegated pelargonium against the fence, followed by a second "Electric Blanket" shrub rose. An aeonium is putting forth strange curving pink flower spikes behind a silver lavender. Another pelargonium is in flower on the far left side: At the back of this bed, a new "Thompsonii" abutilon: Next to it is a "Gingersnap" tree rose. The color fades as the blooms age, but when backlit, they are showstoppers: Continuing past the garage, this is the sunny south-facing side of the house. Those beds are narrow, and it's a constant fight to keep the path clear! Those plants are staked, pruned, and propped up with plant ladders, LOL. This is where I grow most of my roses and all the sunlovers, like cannas, passifloras, sedums, oleander, and ceratostigma: Two stems of "Delany Sisters" roses from this bed, with limonium and senecio, in the vase: "Double Delight" rose: Aeonium and ceratostigma: Another J&P standout, "Ladies in Waiting" shrub rose. Lovely scent, but wilts when cut. The trellises hold a purple passiflora vine along with a nasturtium: Closeup of the passiflora: Continuing down the side path, one of my favorites, the citrus-scented "Intrigue" tree rose: Opposite the "Intrigue" rose, against the fence, a "Sister Mary Agnes" white oleander trained as a small tree hangs over the path and provides welcome shade: I thought this "Nabob" abutilon, next to the oleander, had died of scale and aphids, so I cut most of it down over a year ago. To my surprise, a shoot sprang up and put out a bloom this week: Now we move into the backyard, which is divided into two halves and makes up over half the property. Almost always in flower are the Meyer lemons - we have three mature ones, and are always giving lemons away. The flowers have a deep, strong, heavy sweet scent, and look like miniature orchids. Meyers are self-pruning; most of these flowers will fall off, with only 1-4 lemons actually forming: The Bearss Lime tree is also flowering. It's finally doing well in this bed and I actually got some limes this year. It's much less vigorous than the Meyers: A red oleander: A white pelargonium. The leaves are an ordinary green and the flowers plain white...but it blooms virtually all year long and lives on runoff during our bone-dry summers. An amazing plant: Lastly, a hellebore. This one stays in bloom 7-9 months out of the year: