Tammy, definitely back from the window. Laguna Niguel is near the ocean, isn't it? (I forget; I moved from Manhattan Beach 8 years ago, and didn't get to O.C. much.) They like low to mid 70s, bright, indirect light, and a fair amount of humidity. It's always good to experiment. Good luck and have fun! Korina 'If it's alien, it's ours.' ~Torchwood motto

Thanks for enquiring about us Eileen. Just checking in to say we're all right here in Ottawa and environs. We are thankful for our good fortune. I live just 70 kms south of the epicentre and it was really frightening. There was a loud roar and I could hear and feel it travel diagonally across our house: from the front(west) to the back(east). Both my husband and I were in our kitchen and he realized immediately what it was and said let's get outside. We went out on the deck and it lasted quite a long time. Although the major quake had passed, there was a deep vibration that continued, and kept rattling the cover of the barbeque, and I could see my lettuce plants (in styro. cups awaiting transplant) shaking as this deep vibration continued. The most alarming thing was the sound: this was my first experience of hearing the sound of an earthquake, the house shaking, and everything in the cupboards shaking. We found several drawers open upstairs, and the doors of my husbands wardrobe were flung wide open. Most of the government buildings downtown were evacuated; there were no injuries; a couple of buildings have damaged chimneys and there was quite a landslide on one nearby farm, taking a barn about 200 yards away. No damage, it was just moved intact, but of course it ended up diagonally across a field. The owner is devastated because he bought the farm as an investment for his retirement and now it's worthless. There are lots of large sunken portions throughout the property. Just a few hours later a tornado (we don't usually get them) touched down and wiped out a cottage area on a beautiful lake nearby. Most of the cottages and trailers were not occupied, but it's amazing to see the damage. No life was lost, but there were several broken bones and lacerations. So we have had our share of excitement early in the summer. We also having some rains now, but it has been so dry that I was planting out today and still found some very dry spots. Carol, so sorry to hear about Wayne's brush with nature. She can be so good to us with our plants, and then she throws us these curve balls. I hope the insurance settlement is favourable. Northerner.

I grew ivies for a few years on a north-facing windowsill facing out on a covered porch -- so basically, no natural light whatsoever. Instead, I had electric lights on timers set to 16 hrs/day year round. During the summer, that meant daytime temperatures in the 80s or even the 90s and night-time temps in the 70s, and I never saw much growth. In the winter, with freezing north winds beating on the window, the lights would still heat the windowsill up into the 70s when they were on, but the temperature would plummet into the 50s or lower as soon as the lights turned off -- and the ivies grew like crazy. So... These are very much cool-weather growers. If the west-facing window is much warmer than the east-facing window, then I'd say that's why the ivy there is growing more slowly. (I only have one of those ivies now, and am debating whether to keep it... It's never quite recovered from the spider mite plague that went through a couple years back. FWIW: I've found that the key to keeping mites off ivy is to give the plant a shower every couple of weeks whenever the weather is warm but the humidity is low -- which for me translates to most of the spring. Related trick: Put the ivy under a ceiling fan after the shower to dry the leaves off quickly, otherwise you'll get leaf blight.)

Hey, you guys, Thanks for replying. I'm wondering when everyone will get sick of my hemming and hawing over these various areas, but my head swims with the choices and I drive myself crazy! : ) I agree Felicia might not go as well with VQ, so I'm eliminating it from the choices. I was looking for contrast and LOVED the way Falstaff looked here, but also think a similarly coloured one might go well with other plants in front for contrast. That way it would be one colour covering the wall. Do Cl.P and LL have good rebloom? Do they BS for you, Sheila? Lillyfinch had some complaints about LL, but I don't know if BS was one of them. I'm tending toward these because I'm not sure how they would look with the others which I actually bought for a North facing wall ie. CL PInkie and especially LL are "orphans" without a home. If LL is fairly healthy, low-thorn and floriforous, that would be perfect. I was most concerned its purple colour would clash with VQ. However, if BB is the better plant health-wise, I'll use it instead, since I don't want to deal with this area too much. This space is an experiment that has failed so far, but an important one aesthetically. It does get full morning to early afternoon sun, but it wasn't enough for the plants I originally stuck there to get them through the winter. VQ is growing and bloomed last year and a couple this year, but is no where near as vigorous as the one I have in all day sun. (OF course, It did get stepped on and broken this spring.) Lisa and Sheila, have you posted full bush shots of your HMs before? I'd love to see them even if we don't share the same conditions. (My BB is a BS mess right now. Its leaves go all yellow and fall off, I think from BS.) P.S. The wall is stone coloured.