Thank you Fetters. Really good post. Quite timely for us as DH has suggested putting in a garden pond. My first question was, "What about the mosquitoes?" I was intrigued by the mention of Lemon Eucalyptus. E maculata sounded somewhat familiar so I assumed we call it something else down here. I googled it and this is what I found. E maculata is known as Spotted Gum or Honey Gum (good for bees). E citriodora is known as Lemon-Scented Gum. And there is a hybrid E maculata citriodora. Recently these particular gums have been reclassified from Eucalyptus to Corymbia (useful to know in case the nurseries change the labels). I debated whether to mention the next bit. In some areas they are getting a reputation as an invasive weed. It's hard to know when such a reputation is truly warranted. (I have some birch trees, which are most definately not indigenous to my area, and I do get seedlings coming up, but after all these years my birches haven't taken over the nearby bushland. Or is that because they have no chance against the Patterson's Curse, which was once an introduced garden flower.) I suppose all I can say is do some research if you're thinking of planting one. Perhaps conditions in the areas of the US where they are grown are such that they are happy enough to grow okay but not so happy that they get out of control. And the good news is if you change your mind after you've planted one, it apparently makes really good timber. Hello OzOrganic. Sorry to hear about your landlord issue. Don't get me started on that subject. Hope you find a solution soon.

What a wonderful thread! I love all the stories and pictures. There's something truly awesome about a child discovering the natural world and considering our place in the grander scheme of things. I agree that nature deprivation is too prevalent a risk for children growing up these days. And since we can all find our own place in the garden it makes a wonderful opportunity for a child with autism to be able to show their own unique personality and gifts. I've even found that the garden can draw my kids away from their videogames, Strawb, especially my daughter. You get to hear what your children have learned from you about gardening when they explain it to others. I have 10-year-old boy/girl twins, and they've been explaining the garden to the kids in a large family that just moved in next door. My daughter was hanging out with their 7-year-old twin girls and showing them all the places to pick strawberries and raspberries, and lettuce to take home, and explaining why the blueberries were in a cage. I was smiling to listen as I pruned my mountains of roses, when one of the new neighbor girls grabbed a spare pruner and asked "can I help"? Gotta be one of the top ten favorite phrases to hear! I set all the girls up with pruners and set them doing roses on the edge so they didn't prick their legs. I was proud that my daughter could tell them the gist of it ("cut it off behind the flower part"), and eased an argument among the neighbor girls that "you cut too much" by showing them the big honkin' branches of spent blooms I was cutting myself. They only lasted around 10 minutes, because they noticed all the roly poly bugs in the leaf mulch at their feet. They all spent the next half hour exploring and trying to catch the various bugs and critters in the yard and my daughter was proudly showing off the best places to find roly polies (given that I always mulch with leaves the answer is "everywhere"). And it's not just the girls - later that afternoon a half-dozen or so preteen neighbor boys were hanging out with my son on the hammock. Yes, I can attest that the metal hammock stands can support at least 300 pounds of boy. One pulled up the end of a random plant by his feet and asked "is this a rose"? My son immediately chimed in with the odds-on decision rule - "is it prickly" and they decided it wasn't (it was a clematis). He referred the followup question, "why isn't it blooming" back to me, but it started a nice discussion. Later when my son was waiting for me to finish pruning to start another activity with him, he said the magic words "can I help" and did an entire bed of deadheading perfectly. They still have a limited stamina for garden activities, but I want them to firmly believe that gardening is fun, so I don't set them gardening chores (laundry, however, is fair game). Each time they help I sneak in little hints about gardening, like how to recognize canker or why we leave the asparagus ferns to die down, so I'm hoping they'll hear echos of those ideas when they find the urge to garden on their own. Even if they don't, they'll have an appreciation and respect for nature that is irreplaceable. Cynthia

That's awesome! Congrats on a great find. It's always a rush when you find a new den or a really cool spot you didn't know about before. Actually you had the range of experiences when exploring: one spot that turned out to be a jackpot and another that turned out to have less of the desired habitat than expected. When you explore some new places you never know quite what to expect. That's what makes it all the more fun when you discover a hot new spot like the first one.

Oh, wow, I came to update, and was surprised any of you were interested. I'm still in a dither, this time afraid I should have gotten a white sofa, and not able to decide on fabrics for the rest of the upholstered furniture. The Ellen Kennon paint colors are: Living Room: Tulip Leaves, Peridot or Spring Green. Kitchen and Dining Room: Citrine, Sunshine, Buttercup, or Buttercream. I ordered a Bradington-Young Yorba sofa in a light tan (Surreal Masson). I was going to switch to an off-white leather this morning, but they finished cutting the leather right before I called. My leather is a shade or two lighter than this, but the color of what I bought is nothing like the swatch I have: The loveseat, chair, and ottoman I ordered are these (Jessica Charles): I chose the chair because it is big enough to fit my husband. He wanted the H&M Austin High Back Tilt Back w/ottoman -- but it looked like a huge squatting toad. I haven't selected fabric for the Jessica Charles furniture yet. There are two I like, but I think they'd look better with a white sofa *and* I don't think they'd look good with the green wall colors the consultant advised me to try. If I painted the living room Citrine, it might work. OTOH, maybe the fabric would look awful with the sofa. I am going this weekend to visit my mother for 10 days, so I had a couple dozen more fabric samples sent to her house. I'm bringing my set of Ellen Kennon paint chips and all the fabric samples I have, plus my leather swatch. My biggest problem, besides fearing I made a big mistake in not getting an off-white sofa, is that I like two color schemes equally well and cannot decide what to do: #1 is spring green and soft yellow, with blue accents #2 is a medium mossy green and off-white, with soft yellow accents. I think I made a big mistake when I chose the sofa color. Now I have to figure out what to do about it. It looks fine with the Ellen Kennon paint colors the consultant suggested, though. Hopefully, I'll make a fabric decision very soon, because I've already spent 4 months dithering about this. Green (except for dark green) is my favorite color, so it has to stay in the mix. ...