Hearing you all makes me JEALOUS!! I can go into a charity shop weeks later and see NOTHING NEW!! One CS by me selects which plates it puts out and usually dumps the ones they don't put out and won't let anyone even see them! That's why I feel very blessed to have a friend who works in a different cs who saves all the stuff they'd toss for me to look through. And colorful plates often sell for $3 here - most plates are plain or poorly designed for cutting into mosaics. And there are a lot of plates with brown and mustard colored designs - YUCK! So if I see something colorful I snatch it us so quickly... makes Clark Kent changing into Superman look like a snail! Once I picked up some plates at a cs and the lady said they were so pretty and I must have made a guilty face cuz right away she said, "You're not going to smash them up, are you?" I said I was and she said she had another mosaicer come in often to look for plates for smashing. So I have stiff competition here. No wonder I have a difficult time finding breaking material! HA Actually, when I found that complete service for 12, the Sunflower plates I'm using on my mosaic bench, for just $10, I was overjoyed!! Full patterned plates like that are a very rare find. When I told the ex-owner I was going to break them up she looked heartbroken but I wasn't feeling bad at all. I told her I would make something beautiful with them and I do love the bench. It was because of those plates I came up with the design with the peacocks. Remember, you're repurposing, not destroying. You're taking something that was once used for one reason and creating BEAUTY!! We can't have enough beauty in this world of ours!

Greg and Joan, I'm looking forward to more pics from you two! Golden Pagoda is intriguing. You don't see that one much, and I bet it gets very prominent points in the Houston heat. Joan, maybe you hire a little crew of teenagers every Spring Break to help you out with those 200 trees! Can't wait to see the blooms that are developing here, and you bet I'll post when I get a chance. Robert, that Lemon Drop is Thornton's and one of only a few big ones I have. It's certainly the "branchiest". That's what you can look forward to in a few more years! Bill, our little guy gets us invited back to a lot of places! We would all love to go back to CA soon. Will definitely let you know if we get a chance. K, glad the seeds are coming up for you; they're the perfect flowers for a Texas drought! Yes, that is TLD on the tree because my memory is just THAT bad, lol. Sometimes I abbreviate and then ask myself, "Now what the heck does that stand for again?" Dave, thanks for the compliments! I'm in Austin. We're 8b but I've seen at least one big plumeria tree kept in the ground all winter in my neighborhood. It can be done in a sheltered spot with frost cloth since our freezes are all short-lived. Mike, I found another possible oh-please-let-it-be inflo today, so I feel like I won the lottery! Hope you also have a great bloom year!

You are very welcome :) Love that fragrance here too. Reckon I should post a warning... Sweet Arlene came through winter great and started the spring 2 feet tall. 15°F weather a few weeks ago didn't slow her down. (it hammered some of the other early starters) I'm afraid there will be more Sweet Arlene photos coming soon.

Oh YUM! That shrimp dish looks delish! I was just reading a recipe recently that called for preserved lemons. Thank you for posting the recipe. Unfortunately, my kitchen is in the process of being demolished so it'll be awhile before I can make them, but when I have my new kitchen, it just might be one of the 1st things I make...then the shrimp dish! Your son sounds like a very talented chef! Thanks again for sharing the recipes. alex, that tree is unbelievable! I'm getting a Meyers Lemon tree now!!