That's REAL nice Lou. You know you have set yourself to having to post pictures over and over again now don't you? ;-) I am lucky in that I can have most southern plants, and most northern plants, but that does not change the need for tough and beautiful plants to be added to the pallet. IMHO, MM should look for a Shantung with bigger showier flowers in the spring as well. If he could find a mutant with more crabapple size flowers (almost certain to occur BTW. Shantung is the only maple I know of that has a flower where the petals are so visible, an showy obviously to attract insects. Make them more showy, yellow flowers in early spring, combined with the toughness, then you likely have a winner. Arktrees

Sounds like a fungal disease called rust. It can be treated.

I've been told, although I cannot verify thru experience, that the Black Swallowtails prefer curly parsley. If you want to plant the flat leaf for yourself, plant the curly for the butterflies. I have 3 big uns, one pupating and 2 getting ready to, plus 10 babies eating Rue. You can always plant Rue as well to feed the Black Swallowtails and just move the caterpillars from parsley to Rue. They should accept Rue just fine. I will try to photograph my butterfly larvae and post them tomorrow. They are growing like lil' weeds! The Question Marks are so cute! They are spikey looking and the position they assume on a leaf is.....you guessed it....similar to a question mark shape! Altho this is not why they're called Question Marks. When the wings are folded they have a white "backward C" shape with a white dot below it, hence, a Question Mark. The lower wings blend in with dead leaves so they are hard to see when they land on the ground. But, when they open their wings, they are startlingly gorgeous orange and black (summer form). In their winter form (around September-November), they are predominantly orange. I just wish those darned Red Admirals would lay some eggs now. BTW - I found another sphinx cat on my VC yesterday - tiny little 1st instar. Horn is longer than the body! LOL! It is different than the first which has a red horn (possibly another Nessus). The second is probably a Eumorpha sphinx. Anyway, both are in the container happily chowing down on VC. Susan

Wow, your dragon fruit looks great. I have a question does new dragon fruit cutting go temporarily dormant in the cooler months? I got some cutting off ebay in October and it hasn't even rooted yet(Dec), the cutting have gone bright green to a yellow green and the cutting has also shrunk a bit in thickness. What is wrong why aren't the cutting rooting yet? I have email the ebay seller I got it from and he said that in colder months they will go dormant, then start rooting again in spring. Have you had experience like these for new cuttings? In the first picture with the fruits, is that a cherimoya on the right? I saw on another post you said that you're from Fresno, well so am I. I have some cherimoya seedling going now and I want to plant some in ground and leave some in pots. How has your cherimoya plant been handling this Fresno winter? Sorry, you can disregard the cherimoya question if that isn't a cherimoya.