We've had so much rain that I haven't been able to do much gardening until Friday and Saturday. Late last week we got a break -- three full days without rain. We've been averaging about an inch a day since we arrived in early July. Even after three days without rain, the ground was still saturated, and we got another half-inch this afternoon. However (and it's a big HOWEVER), we made full use of the sunshine and were grateful for it. I had contacted Sue Sill, the executive director of the La Cruz Habitat Protection Project, and she brought me some trees -- three Oyamel firs, the trees that the Monarchs roost in all winter -- and seven native pines. We got them all in the ground Friday and Saturday. They are tiny, but eventually they will provide some shade and high roosts for butterflies and birds. After planting the last four pines on Saturday morning, we took a hike up the ridge behind the house. I had intended to take only the camera, but Larry suggested taking along some collecting bags and a trowel. It was a great suggestion, because I found four types of flowering plants that I wanted to bring back for the butterfly garden. The only one I could identify was a begonia. All of the flowers were growing in profusion alongside a cow path, so I don't think I committed a crime against the environment by moving them a few hundred meters into my yard and away from danger of being trampled. Even better than the flowers today were the butterflies. Mexican Fritillaries and Texan Crescents danced from flower to flower just beyond the fence; three or four different species of Sulphurs attacked red tube-shaped flowers growing at one end of a mountaintop cornfield; a Gulf Fritillary floated over to investigate; and a Monarch (a big surprise this time of year) went by just above eye level, just passing through. The gigantic Tiger Swallowtails have been a little friendlier lately, but apparently I don't have any flowers yet that interest them. They come into the yard and wander around, but they don't stop. A pretty little hummingbird that has claimed possession of my lantana, but he's way too fast for me to get a picture. Mexican Fritillary Texan Crescent I have not identified the Sulphurs yet. They really like these red flowers. I dug up six. The flower is hard to see. The 2-foot flower spike grows out of a cluster of broad leaves like a tulip or a hyacinth. The flowers are pale yellow and shaped like 6-pointed stars. Only two or three flowers are open at a time. The seedpods and the leaves make me think this is a lily. A few ferns came up with the begonias, and I was happy to have them. The begonias I found are pale pink. About 10 days ago, we planted a pomegrante tree. I've been watching this bloom open. Spiderwort began blooming this week. It blooms in March or April in Alabama and is tall and rather leggy. Here, the plant is much more compact and robust. My prize find -- I noticed seedpods sticking straight up out of the top of what I was sure was a milkweed plant along the highway to Patzcuaro, and for two weeks I worried about how I was going to get my hands on them. In late July I saw the first fluff as we were driving by. Larry didn't hesitate or complain -- he just turned the car around and found a wide place on the shoulder to stop. I ran across the highway and found not one plant but three with mature seeds and I collected them all. The only thing I had to wrap them in was my checklist of stuff to bring to Mexico. I don't know the species of Asclepias, but maybe I can identify it once the seeds some up. geni

Thank you all so much for the encouragement! Tom - Come on over! There are vacant homes just around the corner! :D Lady lotus, thank you. I spent several hours cleaning up debris, weeds, foliage... I had gone several months without having done any of that! Beachplants, Those paths were made from about 150 of the scalloped concrete edgers that were here lining the lawn when we first moved in. They work well to get our 4 dogs to NOT run randomly through the plantings! They tend to stay on the paths as they run back and forth through the yard. Hoovb! Firt off, I love your blog, A Piece of Eden! I drool over the wonderful plants you have! And not at all! That darn lawn only gave me more work and problems than I could ever ask for! It was a never ending battle keeping it green in our hot summers! (I'm inland, in the heart of the San Joaquin Valley) Pennyhal, I've been working on this garden for about three and a half years. I love the variety of plants I'm able to grow! Before running into these forums, the word garden only conjured up images of privet hedges, lawns and petunias lol. Here's a picture of the same spot as the first picture, taken in May 2008. Beachplants, You can see the red scalloped concrete edgers here in this photo lining the lawn..

Tricia, what are you using to record your weather conditions? I have a digital, wireless system from Davis and have been considering buying software to port over to my computer for long-term tracking (the Vantage Pro stores one year of data). If you are using software, I'd like to know what it is and if you like it. Whether or not we are in a global climate pattern that is setting up for long-term warming is something that can be discussed for quite some time. But, at the micro-climate level, it isn't just about temperature. My area is classified at best as Zone 5 on the newest charts and even as a Zone 4 in some of the zip code-based on-line systems that probably still use the older algorithms. This winter the lowest temperature I recorded was -8F/-22C. The lowest I have recorded in the three winters Ive been in this house was -16F/-27C. So, at first glance it would appear that this year I experienced a Zone 6 winter instead of a Âtypical Zone 5 winter. However, we had no major winter storms and very light snow cover all winter, unlike my family in New Jersey, who were clobbered this winter as the systems swung south of us. As a result my gardens had minimal insulation from the cold and the desiccating wind. When we did get precipitation, it was most often as rain that saturated what snow there was and then froze, at times encasing some plants in solid ice that certainly didn't help matters. The past few days IÂve been inspecting my gardens (looking, so far in vain, for bulbs to start coming up, as I reported in another post) and it is a sad sight, at least in my herb beds. My lemon, French, English and silver thymes are all gone  dead branches at least back to the base. These thymes were over three feet across and stayed evergreen the past two winters. Winter savory  same. Berggarten sage, Roman chamomile, French tarragon, Greek oregano  same. My two Âhardy rosemary experiments that I tried last summer  Arp and Madeline Hill, which were up against the south side of the house and should have been in worst case Zone 6 and more likely micro Zone 5  same. Even my creeping thymes, which survived, showed damage. It is too early to tell if bronze fennel, chives, garlic chives, Egyptian onion, rue, sorrel, comfrey, all the mints and other late-emerging herbs made it. I expect they did, since they always die back. But, the ones that stay above ground took a big hit. Perhaps, at least some of them will send out new growth from the root stock; one can always hope and it is still early in the season, despite the recent warm spell. (In checking the latest weather report it looks like we are going to be back in the low 20Âs by Monday night, so IÂll have to move back inside the few over-wintered herb plants that I set out this weekend to start hardening off.) But, right now, at a minimum I have a lot of cutting back to do and maybe a lot of replanting in a few weeks. Anyway, my point is that climate is a very complicated creature to try and figure out, especially with respect to the impact of global changes on a specific location. In my case, warmer might be worse, if it part of a pattern that shifts the winter lows south and reduces the snow cover. Conversely, as DITD mentioned in an earlier post on weather, some changes resulting from a global warming trend, like disruption of the Gulf Stream, might actually result in colder and snowier weather for most of New England, at least through our lifetimes. Personally, IÂd like a little more snow and a little more cold, first, because it is one of the reasons I moved to northern New England over a decade ago (I like a true winter) and second, because it does afford certain advantages (no termites to eat my house or woolly adelgids to eat my hemlocks). But, we shall see. narcnh

I don't understand what you want to leave alone, but I love all stages of ladybugs. I wipe off aphids, but see many many ladybugs ready to help me. They are such a good thing. Good luck in keeping them. Sammy