I'm so jealous. Sure wish I could grow succulents outside in the winter. If I'd known I was going to get into succulents like I have, I may have decided on a different place to settle. I do have quite a few blooming in my greenhouse right now. Yesterday, even though it was about 20 outside, the sun was shining and it was 70 in the greenhouse. I went out and thoroughly enjoyed being amongst the succulents.

Merry Christmas! From Vancouver Canada, where we are helping out a pair of Anna hummingbirds who are relying on our feeders to get them thru this winter!! My husband covered one of the feeders in piping insulation and heat trace wire. Yep, we love our hummers!

Hi all! I'm new to the forums but I have an idea why this one doesn't get much response. It's not listed in any of the categories, it's only listed sort of alphabetically in the s's as The Single Life, it took me several visits to find it and I still have trouble remembering where it is on the list to click so I can lurk! Maybe someone should suggest to Spike? that it be made more visible, I know that there are a lot of singles on the forums. Just thought I'd pop in and say something and maybe someone else has had the same experience. My New Year's Resolution is to be proud of being single and not be so quiet. Happy New Year! Charlotte

Yep, birds and berries - always a risk...but I eat them too - there are few berries, heps and haws that have not found their way into various jams. jellies, chutneys and preserves - have been known to munch happily on fuschia and was thrilled when the rampant iochroma produced rather choice fruits. I discovered the joys of chokeberries, juneberries, saskatoons etc a few years ago and literally grew up on rosehip syrup and have been doing serious research into rubus varieties (so many...and often extremely beautiful too. Bearing in mind the paucity of UK natives (being an island under successive glaciations) the general horticultural thrust in Britain has been predicated on our imperial adventures and planthunting past...plus a very, very different attitude towards invasives, so yeah, I do chuck a lot of plant names about but compared to my recent past, I have become the soul of rectitude and responsibility...at least here in the woods (on the allotment, anything goes). Consider, for example, there are only 21 native species of tree...and a third of them are compromised by disease threats or utterly unsuitable to my soil...so I would say we are pretty much on the same page when it comes to increasing diversity - especially pertinent on a monoculture plantation such as mine. Every single inch of the UK has been managed, altered, refined by humans - there is NO virgin or unmanaged land anywhere at all so our invasive list has been steady at around 13 species for decades (I especially enjoy enraging US people by the deliberate planting of buckthorn - a good bird cover and hedge constituent). Also, it is fair to say, my little 5.5 acres can easily withstand the planting of risky species since I am marooned in the midst of agricultural Norfolk flatlands and watermeadows - the biggest environmental threat comes from herbicide run off and unmanaged ditches incubating Himalayan balsam Japanese saws - what can I say except wow. I was introduced to pullsaws years and years ago and have been a convert ever since, particularly given my puny upper body strength, it is much, much easier on the pull than on the push, to cut through tough woody growth...and when that growth is damp and fibrous, even more so. Another massive plus for hand saws is their repairability. I had a very salutary lesson this summer when an idiot friend decided to strim one of the rides in my absence...resulting in the destruction of $800 worth of Stihl brushcutter. The repairs cost me another $550!...and because it was a fuel mix issue, it was not even under warranty (teethgnashing). And nothing is more attractive to thieves than those orange Husky or Stihl power tools - I know of not a single arbourist who has not been robbed, persistently (including us)...yet nobody glances twice at my collection of pullsaws. True, the pole is the least of it and you could almost certainly fasten a decent blade to any lightweight length of pole (although I am seriously struggling with anything over 13feet). Oh yeah, reminds me - those ipomopsis I planted most certainly thrived - must have transplanted them quickly enough to develop taproots in situ...but I have already collected this seasons seed (weird looking stuff or what) from the allotment plantings and sown a whole heap with anomatheles lessoniana (pheasant grass). I also did some trades for the aristolochia fimbriata....