I have never heard that they originated in Costa Rica. I was always told that they were named after Louis Costa, a French nobleman who was a naturalist. Are you saying Costa Rica because of the name Costa?

I am about three miles from the Mexican border so that is about as southern New Mexico as you can get. My acre and a half space is also an NWF refuge, so I welcome all rabbits, and ground squirrels and birds and the rest. The road runners are startling, the quail wonderful to watch (how could anyone shoot out a friend's face pursuing these fist sized birds with a high powered shotgun as their families and babies run by in single file? What's left after you shoot them? How's that for family values? Don't get me started!) so all living things are welcome here (I'd like to get a few chickens in to go on scorpion patrol someday!) I am planning along an eastern facing wall some rosemary plantings, with perhaps a few roses, and wondering what would make it. I hope mainly to get natives in, like mesquite and cacti and ocotillo and agave, etc. There's room enough here, and I've only been in a few months now. Still unpacking boxes. I immediately pulled down a decorative block wall and reset it at the front and center for a meditation garden, and pulled down an old improvised BBQ pit in the back to build a walkway there, to my main bird (and varmint) feeding area. Plenty of those white wing doves around here, whose scientific name ends with asiatica, the only non native species welcome here. I see hummers and woodpeckers buzzing around, but have not yet set up there stations. Have the butterfly puddle going with a slow drip system; the quail families like it too. I set up some small bird feeders (long feeders for small birds) that the dove never bothered in my last place, but these out here, normally ground feeders, have figured out how to hang on and pull out some feed, very strange. Like Flying squirrels in their tenacity! I appreciate deertlvr's advice on local sources, and will go check them out after payday. ALso their advice on transplanting barrel cactus and agave from the leach field as the state inspector advised. Someday I hope to set up the heat resistant strain of tomato as well as squash, bean, etc. Mostly a got a great crop of tumbleweed. I haven't seen any of those goathead making weeds, thank goodness. I hate tracking those seeds into the house and "discovering" them later in the carpet while barefoot. Well, let me know how it goes and what I can do here, too, coming from zone 6. I admire desertlvr's advice about the fruit trees as well.

I've tried rooting them a couple of times, and though I wish to callous those cut ends as is suggested for most types of succulents, it seems the cuttings dry so quickly and shrivel so much they're totally gone in a few days sometimes and don't even callous over in that time, so upon planting , the cut ends quickly develope rot. There must be something I'm overlooking! Rereading some of the earlier posts, I wonder if treating them just as I would any other type of tropical cutting might be the correct way to root them , and not allowing them to wilt nor form any callous before planting them? Seems I tried that as well already, with no luck! Also I'd add from seeing how much mine love maximum sun here in MIchigan and especially hot weather, I'd guess if yuo can provide that more of the year, even when they're indoors for the winter in the north, they'd be more likely to flower more often. As far as I know some are known to reflowrr several times a year after some heavy pruning and of course the abundant heat yearound , where that is said to happen.

Yup, I moved to the desert. It's ok if this bubbles back up to the top - at least it will eventually bubble back down, LOL! I have too many house sparrows at my feeder. They are scaring the hummingbirds away! But I can't find the Magic Halo ANYWHERE. Did they stop making it???