Fun new updates everyone, thanks for sharing what's going on with you and your gardens! Really fun to hear about. Congrats on your 'Curly' orchid cactus, Pagan, they are so low maintenance here, I'm sure yours will thrive for you. Aren't the fruit fun? Mine gets covered each year in those fun, small Barbie Mattel pink fruit. Neat. Keep us posted on yours, especially now that it's so easy to post pics. Great job! raimeiken, your new pics are awesome as always. So nice to see. You grow so many wonderful plants, and so well! I really like all of the hardscape in your garden, really elegant, tasteful, practical and attractive. Great stuff! The temperatures sure have improved, haven't they? I absolutely LOVE this time of year. Pleasant mornings without a hint of being cool/cold, and nice warm afternoons that don't feel HOT. Love it! Here are a couple of plants looking good as the month wraps up: Lycoris radiata, one of the plants that goes by "surprise lily", and for a good reason--these stalks just popped up out of nowhere like they do each autumn, and then suddenly explode into bloom. I've had them several years and they follow the same, smart routine: leaves in late winter/early spring, dormant in summer, and then surprise! flowers in autumn. The red ones have FAR outperformed the yellow ones in my garden. Full, hot, sun for these puppies. Hybrid Aloe 'Hercules' which I bought as a small two footer five years ago, it's now almost 7 feet tall. It's a hybrid between Aloe dichotoma which loves it here, and Aloe bainsii, which hates it here (melting in mid summer usually). Happily it takes after the A. dichotoma and thrives here. The other thing it takes after dichotoma about: little to no summer water when it's in a heat-induced semi-dormancy. This one has done great and certainly isn't hard to find these days. A sure sign of autumn: Zauschneria californica beginning its long, vibrant autumn display of flowers. This plant has a huge flush of bloom in early summer and then again in autumn. Full hot sun and weekly watering keeps it happy. I love it! It self sows around the garden too, often nestling in with very xeric cacti and succulents, so that shows how drought tolerant it is. Here's a pic of it right next to a golden barrel cactus, surviving on the same twice-monthly-in-summer watering schedule as the cactus. The only downside (unless you dislike self-sowing--then there are two): the stems are very, very brittle, so keep it where you or your pets/kids/hose won't slam in to it, breaking the stems. Fun, gorgeous plant, that the hummingbirds adore. Take care and happy gardening! Keep the updates and posts coming! Grant Here is a link that might be useful: Pics from my garden, September 2012

Sounds like the little spiders that cause the leaves to contract underneath from some of my beginning research as I try to save my hibiscus. One of my hibiscus had that, and the insecticide soap (Safers) in Ontario did nothing. I have bought ladybugs, and am releasing them at night under the plants. My hibiscus concerns will be posed on a different posting.

I think your colorful hibiscus was probably grafted. The desirable part was likely killed, but the rootstock survived and resprouted green because the rootstock is an all green variety.

Neat pics and updates, buggy! They definitely show how important and impactful different microclimates are for our plants! I have some bougies that had branches having over the patio that are fine, but the branches hanging out over open ground got zorched by the chill. Some of my blooming mother of thousands Bryophyllums (formerly kalanchoe) melted and some look perfect, all depending on location. The results are amazing. Yeah the Lachenalia blooms really DO look like aloe blooms don't they? There's even a species L. aloides that is even more aloe-looking. Great easy bulbs here though for sure. My geraniums (Pelargonium) plants all did fine, here's that pot pinky purple in the day of the dead talavera pot on the patio. It had petunias in it, and they survived the frost too, but they were getting leggy so OUT they went, hah! Speaking of bryophyllum, here are some that didn't melt, happily blooming away among some Opuntia quimilo cacti. Some clones of this Bryophyllum just three feet away were liquified by Jack Frost. Orange emu bush, Eremophila carnosa looks great too. Definitely my favorite emu bush: Here's just a random corner of the garden, looking WSW. No damage from the recent chill that I I can see. It drives me insane each winter, LOL, by the way, that a purple hop seed was mixed in with the green hop seed when I planted that hedge, hah. In summer they're all green, but in winter the purple one shows its true colors, literally, LOL! I'll keep it of course. Happy gardening all, keep the updates coming, pics or no. Take care, Grant