Welcome to Garden Web. I thought you might like to know there is no email link on your member page, thus no way to email you. To set up your email, just go to the bottom on any page here, and click on Member Pages Then click on Edit your Personal Information, Page, and Preferences You will then probably be asked to login in again. Once there, set the drop down box to Show my email address to MEMBERS And then check the box Allow other users to send you email via forms at our site. That will place a link on your member page, and will also show your email address to anyone you email about a trade. Happy gardening and trading Sue

You can look at it two ways: There's the dry season and the rainy season. The rainy season is November to April, with most of the rain coming in January, February, and March. The best time to plant non-tropicals is October and November, when the weather has cooled off but the soil is still relatively warm, and the winter rains are approaching (hopefully). The dry season is May to October. During the dry season you water and stay out of the garden during the heat of the day. In June you plant your tropicals like bougainvillias and citrus trees. As far as annuals go, you plant pansies and snapdragons and sweet peas in the fall, not the spring, because they prefer the cooler weather. The other way to look at it is indeed Spring, Summer, etc. and they do follow the calendar, pretty much, March 21 is the start of spring, June 21 is the start of summer, and so on. Spring is when most things are blooming and the lawns look good. Summer is when you stay out of the sun between about 9am and about 4pm. Fall things start looking good again, plants start growing again because it is cooler, everything perks up a bit, except when the Santa Ana winds blow. Winter is when the California natives are growing due to the rains (hopefully) and otherwise the plants slow down quite a bit due to the shorter days--less is going on except the Camellias and Cymbidiums are in bloom and it rains (hopefully). Around here, things start growing around March 1 or so, a few weeks before spring starts, and all the plants recover from the heat of summer and get going again starting right after Labor Day, so the season dates from the calender bend a little.

It's most probably the warmer fall you've had..I still have clematis Blooming here in Texas zone 8B..don't you usually prune your Clems in late winter/early spring?..I would wait till then because it is dormant..why prune and leave the cut vine open to disease etc...Jeanne

Nibbling back could've been for scionwood. Will grow as vase, rather narrow. Old bark ugly. You could cut it back periodically, grow it as shrub if it has enough vigor to come back well each time. Wound on trunk could be serious, like other Japanese maples these are prone to fungal/bacterial problems. Painting wound with copper might help, but this would no doubt depend on what, exactly is going on.