Hi all Jhon It is nice to hear from you. I enjoy the book you have sent to me. It is well written. This June, I am expecting to recieve ume/prunus mume seeds from David of Oregon. When I see members of Japan nusery association from Saitama and other area at Southern nusery Associatin Trade show, I am going to ask some ume seeds or cuttings. A friend mine has about 10 feet tall Shidare ume/ weeping ume. I am goong to ask for cuttings or airlayering. I met Cobb county extention service agent yesturday and show my instant ^^ mini bonsai and had good complements. Many Japanese garden forun regulars fled and created new website. www.myjapanesegarden.org Lucy I respect your experty and kind hert to help others. when I write about plants or bonsai, it is simply diffrent opinion and you should not feel that you are attackek some one you don't know. When I write, I write only I know well about it. About Wisteria. If you started from seeding, it may take 8 years to bloom.however Seedilng of grafted wisteria will bloom much shorter than 8 years. we have been cultivated wisteria hundreds years. beside grafting, there are ways to make blooming time shorter than 8 years. Potted wistria is more popular than bonsai wistria, because of growing habit. 4 years ago I had 200 plus wistrias seeding to tree from and vine form for arbor and have been studying history of wisteria. My family emblem is wistirea, Kasuga Shrine of Nara,Japan( large shinto shrine and verly old) also use wistirea. I was wondering how my family relate to shinto shrine. I am happy to share with you those(about wistirea) informations if you are intrested....yama

I just add this message to respond to the notion of a rose sale or auction. Following the lead of Jeri n Clay, the Ventura County Rose Society put on major rose auctions of rare and unusual roses for about ten years; first, annually, then later every two years. As an educational device, the auction was a great success for those putting it on. As someone who started out as a contributor to the catalog that accompanied the auction and wound up writing most of it, I learned a lot. (Most of it had to do with commercial viability.) As a financial effort, it was also a great success. HOWEVER,it was every bit as labor intensive as the traditional rose show, involved enormous amounts of energy and time (gathering and storing of roses, mailing off winning bids to those out of state, etc.) and engendered some antipathy on the part of rose society members who did not want to be involved in what they regarded as scut work; (unfortunately, a lot of life involves doing scut work.) Eventually, we gave it up with 2011 being the last of the auctions. Over the course of the years we probably distributed over a thousand roses, most of which were OGRs or unusual and rare (Clark roses from Austalia before they became easily available, frix.) The only way for the enterprise to operate was to open up a national audience in order to find buyers for roses not well known--even if said roses were perfectly suited to the Ventura County climate--e.g. chinas, noisettes, and teas. The trouble is that the audience for OGRS and unusual roses tends to be spread out across the country in numbers not large enough to sustain viable commercial operations. I might add that the practices of many rose societies in permitting widespread use of cuttings from rose shows, celebrations and the like cuts down on the potential profit or even transactions. I am reminded that Frank Benardella used to dip his show roses in Round-up so as to discourage people from using his entries as sources for free roses... Jim D

I've had both and I gave away one Amelanchier shrub, cut down an Amelanchier tree, am ripping out the last shrub. Last year I added Aronia and while I haven't had it that long, I'm already happier with it then I was with the Amelanchier shrubs and trees. The Amelanchier just didn't perform in our garden. It was stripped of leaves by winter moths one spring and although everything else in the yard, recovered fine, the amelanchier did not. The tree had powdery mildew that effected it despite being planted in a Southern exposure and reduced the flowers/fruiting to almost nonexistent and was pretty unsightly too. The Aronia is 'Brilliantissima' and has some very good reviews online. So, I can't swear by the Aronia, but I have not had good experiences with the Amelanchier. Here in zone 6, it is hardy, but not a performer for me. I try to grow as many natives as I can, so I hope the Aronia will work out.

This is kind of hard to do. It greatly depends on where in Oregon you are. Oregon has so many different climates it's insane. There are beaches, mountains, valleys, deserts, forests, and everything in between. Not to mention the tiny banana belts. I live in Molalla which is a town twenty minutes from every other city (Woodburn, Canby, Salem, Colton etc.) and during the winter everyone else gets snow and we get little to none. Climate-wise I personally wouldn't live anywhere else, besides countries like Scotland, which has a climate very similar to Oregon. When it comes to the people I'd say for the most part everyone is extremely friendly. There are definitely a bunch of hippy people but I love being environmentally conscious so I love that most others here keep all of the nature that Oregon is known for relatively clean. And as for me, I like living in my "small, economically-distressed rural town." Sure, in Oregon the cost of living is higher, but there are definitely ways around spending a bunch of money, especially with the abundance of farmer's markets and small town prices. That's another reason I love living in a small town, the store and shop owners actually work in their stores and are so friendly they'll dish out discounts just because they want to. I think that's one of the main reasons I love living here. The people really are, for the most part, very cool and kind. Also if you have land, like a lot of Oregonians, you won't have to pay for water or garbage since you'll have a well and can burn and compost. Of course, being a native, I have to tell you that you have to be extremely careful about what you burn and when and so on and so forth, but it's worth mentioning. And since you're on a gardening website I'm assuming you might be planning on growing some of your own food and herbs, and that will cut down greatly on cost. Also, Costco and Walmart are musts. It may not be fashionable to shop at bargain stores, but it sure saves you a lot of money!