Curly, I, too, had a bird's nest in my Duchesse d'Auerstadt arbor - a cardinal's nest. I spooked her twice. Once trying to tuck in some wayward canes and once trying to get a photo of the babies. Turns out the babies were more mature than I thought. They flew away. Woosh! Scared me good. I was on the phone with my sister at the time, and she was yelling, "Get away, get away, you'll hurt them. They won't be able to get back in the nest." I said, "Sue, they FLEW AWAY. They're fine." Yours is very cute. Just wait till they hatch! Sherry Here is a link that might be useful: If only sweat were irrigation...

I grew 2 kinds of Amaranthus this year. Velvet curtains and Autumn shades. Its along the edge of my Monet garden. I have tried tri-color in the past, but that one just doesn't grow well for me for some reason. The seeds germinate then stay really small. This one may need more hot weather than what we have here. Sierra

MOst of the pots of the larger plants started out as either 6 or 10 inch. SOme of those plants have since "gone native" on their own, rooting epiphytically onto nearby mounts, into the sphagnum moss of other plants, or sometimes even into the ground. WHen I find that has happened I usually separate those alternatively rooted segments from the main plant still potted and let it go its own way and develop a new "colony" as it will. The Pachyclada is in the equivalent of a one gallon container. Many of the other small rooted plants that I have potted are in either 4 of 6 inch pots. Having had a nursery for a few years, I have containers of all sizes, from tiny 2" net pots to 35 gallon containers for trees. I usually have a container for any occasion, LOL.

I just got back from Fairchild's Ramble. Wow was that fun! Got some cute and cheap succulents for the rock garden, one cool (and silly cheap) brom, one fabulous, to die for (but not so cheap) brom and a couple neat natives, including one that's endangered in Dade (it also grows in a part of Texas.) The tag said it only grows in coastal hammocks, which is what my yard would have been a century or so ago, so I'm particularly happy to host it. And it is a host plant for a yellow Dina butterfly, so hopefully I'll start getting some of those! It's not a showy plant, but I've got an area of the yard I rarely see that I've been wanting to plant with the non-showy natives that help host wildlife. So, I've now officially started that project. The only struggle will be defending them from my neighbor's morning glory and virginia creeper vines and the surinam cherry babies that pop up. I absolutely love Fairchild's sales. We didn't even make it to the art and antiques part. Just did plants! Just the opportunity to learn from the growers is worth the drive. There are people who only do palms, and do the fancy collector palms, but also know absolutely everything about every other kind of palm (I didn't know, for example, that the fishtail palm has a highly toxic seed that burns your skin, and can burn puppy skin too, and that it's being spread by birds and some people are worried it's becoming invasive. Good to know. I just planted a volunteer, gonna rip it out tomorrow. I know, it will be years and years before it blooms and makes seeds, but I don't need that hassle years from now.) The anthurium breeder who crosses them to make beautiful hybrids is fun to talk to too. I bought a gorgeous purple one, similar to a birds nest fern, but bigger and fabulously purple, last year. The husband named it after his wife, Marie, which I thought was sweet. (Georgia Tasker wrote about it recently in the Herald.) And it is as easy as he promised, never been watered or fertilized, and mine is now larger than the big $65 ones they were selling today (I was lucky to get their last small one last year.) It's one of my few true specimen plants, I tend to avoid those fearing I'll neglect them to death, and a really expensive plant is often expensive because it's difficult to care for. I have so much landscaping to do, I need to save the budget for many examples of the cheaper stuff that I won't kill. But he promised it was so easy, you could attach it to the Y in an oak tree and it would be fine. I put in a place where it is well set-off by the privacy fence behind it and I enjoy just sitting on the deck looking at it in all its sculptural beauty. There are few plants I love as much (well, the dwarf ponciana beats it, actually, that one is just a joy, I got it at a plant sale to benefit a local park for $3.) Fairchild is the only place I've found (and I bet the USF sale is the same) where I'm willing to buy an expensive plant because I'm going to talk to the guy who raised it first and figure out exactly where I should put it and figure out if it's something I can care for. My companion on this trip went with a list: a banana, a traveler palm, a yellow brom. She didn't bother with the traveler palm, they were really expensive. But she got a praying hands banana. How cool! Certainly not something you see at a big box. And then she fell for a native and some silly cheap broms too. I don't go with a list, just the idea that I'm going to get things I can't get at the big boxes, like interesting natives that don't bloom on command so don't interest most people when they're scanning the aisles, interesting specimen plants that I can actually keep alive, or things like the succulents that are cheaper at the Ramble. It really is an event worth saving up for. Ok, I'll stop gushing now, but I had so much fun! Susannah