Fun new pics and posts all, keep them coming. March is a great time of year in the garden here isn't it? Love it! "Stuffed" is the right word to describe my patio, dusti, LOL! Guilty as charged. :) Good luck with the clivia and Schlumergera outside. Mine always got very cranky by late summer so I kept them inside for summer now. Keep us posted and post lots of pics! I've tried Aeonium nobilis a few times before, Cesar, and mine always failed (died) in late summer due to the heat. I have great success with Aeonium arboreum (the common, popular types and hybrids) but my nobilis always died on me. I keep all of my aeonium plants very dry in summer when they're in a heat induced semi dormancy (and they look awful, hah!), but the arboreum types revive in autumn and then I give them more water. Good luck with yours--do keep us posted! Great looking tomato plants, timber. Nice and vigorous! Just for fun here are some aloe blooms open right now. I purchased the plant without a label quite a few years ago. It's one of my favorite aloes so I have planted a dozen or two of its offspring (from pups/offsets) all over the garden. Great peachy/apricot color and branched bloom stalk: And here's something NOT looking great, lol, tatty pomegranate foliage which has been visited by leaf cutter bees, LOL. They do this every spring and I don't really mind as the plant eventually outgrows it. Happy gardening all! Grant

This is such a good idea! I've wondered if some of you could have been my neighbors in the various places I've lived. Anyhow it's nice to be "online" neighbors now. GW Name - luckygal What does your GW name stand for? - I don't really believe in "luck" but I feel very blessed to have survived so well this long. Real Name - Katie Age - 66 Companion - same husband for over 42 years Children? - 3 nice adult kids and 6 wonderful grandkids Pets? - 3 indoor cats, 2 we chose from the SPCA and 1 who chose us - he just wondered by one day and needed feeding, and one outdoor feral cat we feed who keeps the mice under control. We're between dogs. Where do you live or used to live? - have lived in rural BC near the middle of the province for almost 20 years, originally from the west coast of BC, have lived in Alberta, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, and Germany Zone? - 3b (according to the Canadian Zone Map) Do you work? - yes, but since I retired I don't get paid as much for it! Have been a jill-of-many-trades and master of a few. Companion Occupation? - ex-military, retired teacher Other interests besides gardening? - various crafts, sewing, knitting, crochet, reading, computer, yard saling, repurposing yard sale finds, interior decorating (DH calls me Martha when I get too obsessed), photography, traveling now that we are retired How long have you been gardening? - 60 years at least (difficult even for me to believe) - my parents were avid gardeners and I helped from an early age. Where is your garden located and what is its size? - we have a large acreage and the garden is near the house, sort of large city lot size but could be larger. Courses in Horticulture? - no, self-taught, but with many mentors What are your specialities in gardening? - propagating houseplants but I'm no longer doing that as it tends to get out of hand (who really needs 30 diefenbachia?), I like growing perennials from seed and nurturing yard sale plant finds, I like planning my garden then deviating from the plan. My DH would say it's leaning on my shovel and telling him what to do! Favorite Flower? - delphiniums, Lady's Mantle, geranium Vancouver centennial (more for it's foliage) are a few Favorite Tree/Shrub? - dogwood altho it doesn't grow in our climate What has been the best-performing plant/plants in your gardens? - shasta daisies and feverfew which are overly prolific self-seeders, irises, delphinium, Lady's Mantle, various poppies, Autumn Joy, and lots more - I'd have to think. Most Challenging Plant? - lavender, I started with 3 plants a few years ago and have one left which seems to struggle to survive every year. I think I need to create a mini-climate which is dryer and warmer but it's easier to just visit a lavender farm and buy some dried. Favorite Gardening Quote? - "I appreciate the misunderstanding I have had with Nature over my perennial border. I think it is a flower garden; she thinks it is a meadow lacking grass, and tries to correct the error." ~Sara Stein, My Weeds, 1988 Favorite Garden Magazines? - have only ever taken Gardens West and Harrowsmith subscriptions but no longer - occasionally borrow from the library, there is much more info online Favorite Garden Books or resources? - have 4 of Lois Holes' books which I use, some old gardening books I seldom read, Richters herb catalogue which is fun to dream with, online sites and forums What is your favorite tool? - my little red wagon which I use instead of a wheelbarrow in the house yard. DH got me a second one, a green one to use out in the back-40 for picking sticks. Both yard sale finds $10 each. I also really like using our old cement mixer, it's like this huge noisy toy! We've made hypertufa pots, concrete rhubarb leaf stepping stones, and I like mixing my own garden-healthy mulch in it. What are you most comfortable in when gardening? - shorts, shell or t-shirt, flip-flops mostly or heavy workboots if I have to dig, if it's cold fleece pants and tops, same footware, cotton gloves changed frequently when muddy or rubber gloves occasionally, depending on what I'm doing. What has been your best garden project? - When we had a new water line dug they struck rock the entire way so DH hauled huge rocks in the tractor bucket and created a rockery on a slope near the house. It's become overgrown so I need to replan and replant soon but I love those huge half buried rocks. He also more recently built me a large decorative-only birdhouse out of old barnboard and it's in the garden all summer and on the verandah in the winter. Any projects in the works or planned? - started a lasagna bed this summer over part of the lawn and we're adding to it, hope it produces great veggies next year. Am thinking about a garden house, probably plan it over the winter. Would love to enlarge the garden area more but I think that might be biting off more than I can do. If you had an unlimited budget, what would you do with your gardens? - I've always wanted a bobcat to play with but with an unlimited budget I'd probably hire a landscaper and gardener also and keep them busy for awhile. Buy a hammock and watch them work! Cottage style all the way with gazebo, ponds, streams, bridges a la Monet's garden. If you could invent a plant, what would it look like? - hardy for my zone, resistant to all plant problems, long-lived perennial, very blue and it would look just like my delphiniums but smell like a spicy rose. Would that seem weird or what? Describe an experience with a garden pest that had you ready to throw in the trowel? - being "bug-phobic" I try not to think about them and the birds eat most of the bugs in the garden altho we have zillions of ants, also voracious deer, and pine, spruce and fir beetles in the forest. Plant pests are dandelions, wild yarrow, chickweed, and various pasture grasses that seed. I try to be organic but occasionally use ant dust around the perimeter of the house so they don't eat it! Otherwise it's live and let live here. Parts of the lawn are turning into yarrow groundcover which I may address, or not. Hey, it's green. What advice do you have for the novice gardener? - Join your local garden club, read everything you can about gardening - discover gardening forums and online sites, read library books, start composting, plan a bit, then just get out and do it your way and have fun. Don't waste a lot of money on expensive plants until you actually have good soil to plant them in. We learn more from our mistakes than our successes so don't be afraid to try. What is your motivation for gardening? - I'm incapable of not gardening, it's in my genes.

Finished up Spook by Mary Roach, an in-depth and irreverant look at the world of mediums, ghosts etc. Very funny (as she always is) and interesting, but more of a pick-up and put-down book really so it took a while to finish. Finished The People of Privilege Hill by Jane Gardam, a book of short stories (one or two featuring old characters like Old FILTH etc.). Most of the stories were very well written, but there were a few slightly odd ones in there. I think it was a bit of a vanity project for the author... Then an ILL came in: Fire on the Mountain by Anita Desai, a novel with absolutely beautiful descriptions in it of the hill station in North India where the book is located. There is a crusty grumpy old lady who lives there, glad to be alone when suddenly one of her daughters dumps her own daughter (the protag's great granddaughter) there all summer. It's how the relationship develops (or dosen't) between the two generations. Really enjoying this one bc the writing is just so good. Then, as a NF read, I have another book by Sue Hubbell, a series of essays (I think) about her country living and keeping bees. I really enjoyed her other book, so am hoping this will be similar. I also need to switch off One-Click on ama. It is absolutely far too easy to buy a book right now when I have a slow mo at work...

annpanagain, re your earlier comments on library closures, it turned out that the village we moved to in July lost its local library in April, part of cutbacks that saw 20% of libraries in the county council closed. There is a monthly mobile library service to the village. I am probably fortunate in that the county town is only 3 miles away and the central library there, readily accessible as I drive, is well stocked. After joining I came away with 3 books. The first, which I have already finished, was by a new author to me - Giles Kristian, with Raven Blood Eye, the first of a trilogy about Vikings' expansions into England. The other 2 were crime novels - 4th of July by James Patterson, a women's murder club offering; and a gentler The Coniston Case by Rebecca Tope, the third in her Lake District trilogy. I am looking forward to making good use of this library facility and saving myself a fortune. I have read over 50 books already this year and do not even want to think how much I have spent.