Fabulous photographs Kathy! Love that section of the world. I'll be near there the end of the month when I have to come out to teach in Willits. Don't you think it interesting that you can never seem to really capture the size of those trees in a picture? Looks like you had a great time. Thanks for posting the pic of that dahlia for me. I really have to get that! Beautiful! That would look terrific in a pot with the canna 'Pretoria'. Your gardens and roses are all so beautiful! My rose garden is pitiful next to yours! That lily is stunning and how wonderful to see a lily without damage from the darned lily beetles. A visual treat! thanks for sharing Deanne

They will keep growing from what I've seen but always displays the look of chlorosis esp toward the end of the summer. You'd have much better luck with central Texas source. The only place I know of that sells it is Madrone Nursery in San Marcos where you can get them pretty cheap. Montezuma cypress trees at the neighborhood park has nice green color growing in alkaline soil on top of limestone rubbles so that's another option for you to try. Another option is to get montezuma-bald cypress 'Nanjing Beauty' from Botany Garden Shop online. It's reported to tolerate as high as 8.5 pH. This is Nanjing Beauty at Dallas Arboretum during December. Holds its green foliage into January before displaying winter color. The director there told me it has grown very fast. I just planted one in my rocky limestone soil so time will tell how it'd do in alkaline soil. I guess this is central Texas bald cypress??? The foliage is very green unlike other bald cypress trees around it in that neighborhood a couple miles from me. I have 4 or 5 seedlings in the container and has same deep green color as that one. It caught some of tree experts attention and wanted seedlings or seeds from that tree. Very low germination rates unfortunately. I was talking to Texas fellow from Denton on Texas gardening forum about cypress and he said that his bald cypress looked bad but his montezuma cypress was doing pretty good with no chlorosis problem. Might as well just give up those cypress trees and start over with cypress trees I suggested.

I have a few fast growing hosta (Birchwood Parkey's Gold, Special Gift, and a couple of unknowns) growing in a river rock covered area on the west side of my house. There is just a fairly shallow cover of rock (a couple of inches, with dirt underneath and the hostas are planted in among other perennials. They are doing fine. All of the plants grew enough in a couple of years time to pretty much shade all of the rock, so it doesn't get hot at all. It takes a lot of sun in the afternoons but I guess the other perennials provide enough shade, because the hostas look pretty good.

Thanks-- the boat is a good time. These guys were constantly seeking out the shallowest part of the river for additional speed. We were about on dry land in many places.