Vetivert & Calistoga, Thanks for your responses. My main concern was that I wasn't sure how to treat the bulbs out of ground. Like I mentioned above, I know you can't let Lily bulbs dry out, also some kinds of Irises - Louisiana & Japanese. So I was concerned about leaving Camassia bulbs out of ground for a couple of months before I can either give them away or plant them. Since Camassia bulbs look similar to tulip bulbs I would think it wouldn't hurt them to be out of ground for a couple of months. But, as Calistoga mentioned, if a new planting site is ready, plant them now. I did find a site that gave general instructions for bulbs, (although not specifically Camassia.) From a Cornell University article, "Introduction to Bulbs": After several years, daffodils and some other species form clumps of multiple bulbs. The size of their flowers and length of their stems decreases as the bulbs become overcrowded. Wait until after the foliage dies, then dig up the bulbs, separate them, and replant them with wider spacings. You can replant them immediately after you dig them in June or July, or you can wash off excess soil, dry them, and store them in shallow boxes in a cool, dry, airy place until fall planting time. Replant only the largest bulbs in your flower beds. Plant the smaller bulbs in a nursery bed for a season or two until they reach flowering size I have a couple new sites in mind, so I'd better get to digging! Thanks again, Julie

Well, you did have some fun this year with your bulb order, pitimpinai. [g] You are lucky to be able to grow frittilaria. I love them, but stay away from them because we have Red Lily Beetle here that is a nasty pest on the lilies and frittilaria is an alternative host. I also enjoy Camassia which I winter sowed from seed one year, but they didn't come back the next spring for some reason. I am trying to imagine where you could find room to 'plant more in your full to overflowing garden though. [g] I think we have similar small properties? Mine is 1/4 acre and we ripped everything in the back out in '04, so I haven't quite filled it back up again yet. I am excited for your spring too. Can't wait to see photos! :-) Danielle, you make a very good point. sometimes a plant just didn't read it's own specs. [g] I agree and have had similar experiences with boxwood. Some people seem to have trouble with winter damage and I rarely do. I planted mine before I knew you were supposed to be careful where you put them. I got lucky. I am forever moving perennials and shrubs because I haven't found the right spot but I am getting tired of doing it. lol I know I will keep doing it, but I am trying a little harder to get it right the first time.

Sounds a lot like my backyard. My garden is highest in the middle, consistently slopes downward, has a somewhat steeper slope (dropping a good 3 feet in a couple feet) about two thirds of the way to the property line, is lower on both sides, but quite a lot lower on one side than the other. I put taller shrubs on the low side, shorter ones on the high side. BUT, I also had much different drainage conditions from one side to the other. If this is true for your friend's situation, then I believe the height of the shrubs is probably only a minor consideration. In my garden the high side has much better drainage, the low side holds water & sometimes lies in water. Plantings had to be quite different from side to side. Both sides are in full sun. For example, the center of the yard and part of the left lower side will grow a pine, the low areas on the right will kill a pine in one season. Finding deciduous plants & shrubs to suit both sides was fairly easy, finding evergreens in my climate was not. Since I didn't want to lose a lot of money experimenting with expensive shrubs and trees for the "wet garden" and a lot of the water loving ones get much too large for my smallish space and I'm a plantaholic anyway, the very low right side has more perennials than the left side, where I have a few shrub roses among the pines, daylilies, and grasses. (BTW, Itea & Clethra will grow on both sides). The perennials on the lowest side, such as water loving iris, are interspersed with a lot of cheap thicketing shrubs, like red twigs, and only a few tall arborvitaes (up the slope somewhat, where it is not too wet) for winter color and to balance the small rounded pines on the other side. Thus the height was more a function of what would grow well where. I mostly used color to unify the area, using a Blue Montgomery Spruce, 3 Crimson Pigmy Barberries, a Purple Leaf Sand Cherry & Purple Smokebush on one side & another Blue Montgomery Spruce, 3 more CP Barberries & 2 Physocarpus Diablo (which tolerate wet clay quite well) on the other side (toward the higher middle for drainage reasons) with a lot of red blooming perennials (quite different ones) on each side. I also used some tall grasses in place of shrubs in both areas, dry & wet and even planted bulbs on both sides, daffodils on the higher side and camassia on the other. Despite the fact that the spaces were different in size, I used a very similar bed shape on each side, trying for some additional symmetry that way, since the plantings were so different. Hope this gives you some ideas of the issues you can have with slopes and dropoffs.

When I prune my Draceana - Song of India, I cut it back to about a foot, sometimes having a 3 foot (or longer) piece that I have cut off. I just strip the leaves off the bottom foot of the trimming, then stick it right in the ground with the parent. It doesn't bush as nicely as the Marginata. The Marginata seems to really like being cut back, but I've had a harder time rooting the cuttings. It bushes nicely from the cut ends on the parent.