There's a thread on Mons tiller fries in the sun, see below: "Mine fried after an hour or two in the sun, more so than my other tea roses so it's no longer with me in my hot garden. Clementina Carbonieri did the same thing. A pity, since both are beautiful roses. Ingrid." ***** From Straw: I'm adding own-root Yves Piaget on my rose-order for next year, along with Young Lycidas and Romantica "The McCartney" rose. I researched again on Yves Piaget: the person who grows Yves both as own-root vs. grafted reported wimpiness for both. Someone from PNW (rainy & cool) climate also reported Yves being wimpy. Robert Rippetoe in his Rancho Mirage climate of exreme heat, drought, and alkaline sandy soil .... grows Yves Piaget and uses it in his breeding program ... so it must be very good for him. I figured out what makes Romanticas works: fluffy potting soil for the roots to get big, then transfer to fertile clay. I have Yves Piaget's children bred by Robert Neil, I put gypsum in the pots, and they went beserk with growth. Ingrid in this forum once grew Yves, but it didn't do well in the heat ... she has loose de-composed granite soil high in potassium. That's different from Ingrid in Thousand Oaks, who has clay. According to Wikipedia, high potassium or high nitrogen drives down calcium. The Romanticas have a higher demand for calcium than other roses, they are very sensitive to salt, so saline soil is not suitable. Calcium in gypsum is used to de-salt saline soil. That explains why Mons.Tillier works for Jaspermplants in Arizona, but didn't work for Ingrid with high-potassium soil. Arizona is alkaline clay high in calcium like my Chicagoland clay ... I'm next to a limestone quarry. Calcium is known to firm up tissue of plants, and helps with drought-tolerance, which explains for the success of Romanticas in my limestone clay. Here's an excerpt on calcium from the site http://www.oxyfertil.com/royaume-uni/role-ca-mg-plante.html · increases the plant tissues' resistance and allows for more erect stems · contributes to normal root system development · increases resistance to outside attack Here is a link that might be useful: Does your Mons. Tillier fry in the sun? This post was edited by Strawberryhill on Fri, Jul 12, 13 at 10:58

I so agree that people don't do their research...and that includes me! When I was working part time to fund my habit, I was a lot more free in my spending. Now that I don't and have zero space left, I tend to be more choosy. However, if I want it, I will go for it. If not, I'll let it go. Sometimes, it was just a whim or like others have said, I see it come up later from a seller I like better... Bambi, noting personal, but I no longer bid as you prefer. Several years ago, I did just that. Put my huge max bid on a plant I really wanted. Problem was that the seller had several offerings. Shortly thereafter, someone bid mine way up there....while the others sat there with much much lower bids. Strangely, the person who bid mine up didn't bid on the others...not even in the final minutes. The others did go up, but not where mine was....that taught me a big lesson. (Never show your cards, as it were...) So, now...if I want it, I simply want to outbid whoever has it (if). When I do that...if I really want it (and for some sellers, it is worth it to me, even to pay a bit more, because their plants are superior to others), I will add another bid or bids as I feel necessary. Of course, let's face it....if you really want something, you have to pay attention...as there are always those who like to bid at the very end. I lost seeds recently from someone who actually placed a bid at the exact time (to the fraction) at the time it said the auction closed. Huh? So, they really close one second after they say?? Whatever. My bad, as I should have been watching... These days, I'm finding that I order/buy more directly to get what I want...when I want. But, hey, I do like to play on the LA some. I mean, I need zero seeds as I have thousands of my own...but I like to buy some from favorite sellers for old times sake...and I will take a chance or two to get seeds from something I don't have...yet (lol)! I'm glad it's there (the LA)...I've been mostly a buyer but I'm sure my time is coming to be a seller (like with all those seeds...lol!)... I do agree, Bambi (back to you!), however, about filling your garden with plants that don't wow you. Too much work and too little space....I'm in the process of reorganizing (please hold off Mr. Winter!) now....maybe I'll actually make some space (I doubt it!) I can fill next spring. (At least, that's what I'll tell myself!)

The shrub/hedge is a ficus. The trees on the side came with the house. I am not sure what it is but blooms pink large flower. I agree, the fence is nice. The hedge is to cut out noise and to create more privacy in the back there is an apartment sitting up on a hill behind the house that looks into the yard. A 9 foot hedge would give us the privacy. We thought about trees inside the yard but that would take away space from an already small yard. The front flat yard is small. I am attaching the size. Flat land on left is approx 24' wide x 15' and right side is 16' by 15'. The left is actually larger. The lop is a aprox 30 degree 5'9" I am definitely going to hit Pasadena area. My neighborhood is mixed with landscape styles. It's a neighborhood that is changing. The new kids are doing the complete drought thing and some mixing covers, and grass with drought. The older homes have low fences/gates around the front yard (predominantly to keep the homeless from sleeping on their yards) We were one of the first to take off our front door security gate, and now, others are following. So it is hard to gauge the neighborhoods theme. I would say, 10% of the houses are fully drought resistant(new kids), 75 % grass and tree (50% with gates) and the rest of the folks have dead grass (could be considered drought tolerant (GRIN) or total hard-scape. I have to admit, I dig some of doug's designs. I am not a fan of the palm trees but that design is appealing

I’ve been in the construction and design world for over 20 years. I have experience with what personalization of a home can do for its value. I was involved with a home where 5 million dollars was spent on some extremely personal and award winning artistic design choices. The custom cast bronze sculpture/stair was jaw dropping. They put in KraftMaid cabinets and standard GE appliances in a pretty small kitchen by today’s standards. When she suddenly died, and he had to put the house on the market, it was a fire sale. He ended up accepting less than 1 M for it after 2 years. In a neighborhood where high 1 and low 2s was a fairly standard selling price. It had to be completely remodeled. A new home had to be remodeled because it was way over in many areas, and way under in others. The new kitchen involved an addition. I’m a proponent of do what you want for sure, but only if you are fully informed of the potential consequences. That’s what I’m trying to do here. Inform. A lower cost home with expensive professional grade appliances in it is a difficult thing to justify monetarily, because they swallow such a large percent of the budget. They depreciate rapidly, so the only value is in their frequency of use and the pleasure that they give. That’s hard to justify when the ratio of expense is so high. The use that they will get has to pull a lot of weight for the % of the dent in a build budget. The opposite is also true. On a larger budget build, choosing mid range appliances saves very little % in the budget. But it does foster the overall perception that budget cuts were made, and a closer look should happen. If choosing by a mid level package in an upper level neighborhood is the choice you want to make, then the kitchen should be designed to accept a standard upper end package when it comes time to sell. It would be like a 1M new build having a 10x10 1960’s sized kitchen in it. You’re going to look a lot closer at everything else. There are certain product selections expectations at all levels of builds. You don’t see exotic hardwoods in a 150K starter home, and you don’t see sheet vinyl in a 1.5M peak market home. To remove any choices from the context of the home and neighborhood removes the concept of an appropriate selections budget all together. A outlier home that doesn’t fit into its neighborhood, either because of inappropriately high, or inappropriately low selections, usually has more a more lengthy and involved selling process. Design for you. But understand how others may see your choices, and that there may be a price to be paid.