There's Marian... :-) I'm sorry to hear you are not feeling well. You were having such a great spring, what a shame to have such a bad flare now. I hope you can rest as much as possible and wait it out until it improves. It must be very discouraging and disappointing after having been more active for awhile. Hang in there Marian, you've been bad many times before and you've improved, this time will be no different. Woody....we have an awful case of aphids here this year too. I have let them go too and my lupine are a mess with them, but I just couldn't keep up with them either. A local nursery sells lady bugs here and I wanted to get over there and get some earlier in the worst way but never made it. So maybe next year if they are back, that is what I'll try. I have seen a few ladybugs on the roses, so they have not been too bad, but the ladybugs are definitely in the minority. Who knows, maybe by leaving the situation alone, the ladybugs that are here will multiply. I love your tripods and the copper wire was a nice idea. I imagine they will fold together for storage that way. The Harlequin Honeysuckle is so pretty! Is it fragrant too?

Here's some info that I posted a couple months ago in response to another quetion about false rosemary. I love my false rosemary and it is one of the toughest plants I've ever grown. It thrives in both drought and rainy conditions as long as it has well drained soil, blooms beautifully, has wonderfully fragrant foliage, and really attracts bees. Once it was fully mature it also became thick enough to smoother any potential weeds and since it's evergreen I never have to weed under it. I really need to trim mine back but I love how it looks so much that I haven't been able to do so yet. To propagate it just pin some of the longer braches to the ground and partially cover them with dirt. The branches will root themselves fairly quickly. My main plant is surrounded with smaller plants where it's branches have layed on the ground and rooted themselves. I bought my original plant at a native plant sale up in Gainsville several years ago and it was in a 3" pot. This is a florida native that is also known as a scrub mint in the Conradina genus. This particular variety gets between 2 and 3 feet tall and as wide as you will let it. I've had this plant for about three years now and have never had any problems with it as long as you don't count the fact that when it is in bloom it is constantly covered in bees. Even though I walk past this plant and brush against it while it's in bloom none of the bees have paid me a bit of attention. I believe that there are 4 different varieties of Conradina native to florida, two of which are endemic and endangered and a third is endemic and threatened. My plant is probably the fourth variety, Conradina canescens, but I'm not positive. As the first picture shows the plant is slowly trying to swallow up both my plumbago and my bleeding hear vine. The trash can in the background gives you an idea of the plants size. This is a plant that loves full sun but will tolerate some light shade (mines under a moderately large multi-trunked crape myrtle) and needs plenty of room to grow! Yes, my swamp sunflowers are Helianthus angustifolia. They do spread but so far I haven't had an issue with them, when they started migrating beyond the area I wanted them in I just just off the babies with a shovel and pulled them out. The native monarda is Monarda punctata and does have the lavender and white flower bracts. One native plant I forgot to mention that makes a great background plant is the Sparkleberry (Vaccinium arboreum). It's north america's largest member of the blueberry family although the fruit doesn't taste all that good. Here is a link that might be useful: Sparkleberry

Larry, my favorite part of gardening is the eating, so perhaps we shall trade those tasks, hmmm? Just kidding - actually, I am not sure which is my favorite part, but I am certain it is not soil prep. I do like the planning, the day-dreaming, the planting and the harvesting. The only thing missing from my like-list is the weeding and watering and prepping. Lisa, the purple is onion as mulberryknob (Dorothy?) says - I'm sorry, I'm not good with forum REAL names but that just popped into my head. I have several bits where the onions seemed to shrivel and die last year before doing anything, so were not harvested. This winter they have popped back out, as little bunches of three or four sprigs where I had planted only one. Am letting them do their thing to see what happens. They should set seed, but I don't know yet if that seed will self-sow and I might get onions next year. Onions confuse me very much for some reason. Bulbs, sets, plants, seeds. Ugh. Just give me onions already! And Mulberry - the green stuff in the lower right is rosemary and it's weathered just fine. I have some I had in huge pots with cannas and hibiscus that I dragged into the garage in the fall, am hoping it will bounce back as well. There are a few plugs of garlic there, too. Dawn, it is very tedious (but strangely satisfying!) and I knew once I ignored it I was consigning myself to this task before I could do anything with it. I neglected to mulch anything except the paths last year, too, I was a busy/lazy gardener for sure. This year I will do better. Have plans to lay a path of bricks around the exterior of my plot, to create a "kill zone" for the bermuda. I am trying to keep from applying herbicides to the garden, but might do some judicious bermuda-cide in the two foot perimeter if needs must. We also had to cut down a wild sprawl just to the left of the photo that used to have blackberries, elephant garlic and some kind of onion or chives all over, as it was overrun with tall grasses, scrub trees and honeysuckle. We weed-eated it to the ground (except the elephant garlic, I found the leaves still green so we could work around it. Am hoping the blackberries will come back and I can start them on the right foot, and train them a bit, otherwise/in addition I plan to put in some new fruit trees/shrubs to create a more perma-scape than the usual veggie plot. Our peach tree is in sorry shape and DH cut it back severely so I don't know if it will do anything this year.

Try searching under the correct species name, Distictis laxiflora. It is available in California thru several wholesale growers, and possibly mail order as well from the usual sources for tropicals. I don't know of any local nurseries in Palm Springs, but it should be pretty easy to find at a retail nursery such as Buena Creek Gardens in San Marcos, north San Diego County. As to a couple of other question on specific vines, the Senecio confusum is another wildly colorful twiner with vivid flowers, don't know the why of the name. Senecio tamoides is another rampant South African twiner with great fall/winter bright yellow bloom. The Petrea volubilis is much hardier than Sunset Western Garden Book states, it is perfectly happy against a warm sunny wall in zones 16 and 17, and mine blooms several times a year here in Berkeley, and was unfazed in the 1990 freeze at 25F for 10 days. However, young growth that hasn't hardened off will die back even without freezing temps, especially on young plants until they get some size. Another vine that is understated in its good looks, unfortunately not at all fragrant, but with beautiful graceful white tubular flowers is Oxera pulchellum from New Caledonia. There is also a new Solanum species from Suncrest Growers that is a good deep blue and virtually everblooming, and is simply labeled with the Mexico state it came from. This is one of my new favorite blue/purple blooming vines.