Hi Everyone! I have a new flower to share. Now some may say they're not real inviting, at least not the fragrance, but she sure is pretty! Just bloomed this morning. I need to find out which one it is now. lol! I've been waiting since mid Nov. for it to bloom. :) It's only about 3" across. A nice little one. :) Nancy~ Hubby and I both love the new photos of Max. Boy does he look comfy in his little blanket, and clothes. LOL! and I thought mine were spoiled! lol! Jodi~ Our grasshoppers can get a little mean, just like the mantis, so they eat what they want! LOL!! Hi To everyone else, I need to run! JoJo

Thank you all for the welcome and the wishes. As I said our winter has been quite miserable. It has been a bit colder than we were used to in the last few years but fortunately temps stayed just above freezing where I live. We also had lots of rain, quite a bit more than average, which is mostly a good thing for the plants if not always for people's mood That is if it falls reasonably slowly which it didn't...The problem has mainly been the stormy weather with very strong winds and torential rain at times. I had two arizona pines come crushing on a few young citrus trees and lots of other branch damage on various trees. Also quite a bit of wind burn damage on tender plants. I saw lots of blackspot on what was left of the roses foliage which I had never seen before. Now I know which of my roses are blackspot prone! I shouldn't really complain because other people had to suffer flooding, mudslides and lots of property damage. We also long for sunny days to help with our mood which is not something you would expect to hear from someone living 200 yards from the Med. I understand the drought in SoCal is continuing despite some winter rain? What can I say, I just wish I could siphon some of our water over to you guys.

You have some very good looking plants there. Good luck with the coming season!

Good to see you around here, DG 🙂 Fighting with critters over blackberries and the last of my tomatoes right now. Birds and (I think) rats as well 😕 I made some tomato sauce yesterday from all the damaged fruit I managed to salvage - almost a quart - and I have a couple of pints of berries I need to make into a cobbler. Waiting for a second flush of Rattlesnake pole beans - still have a few pounds in the fridge. I have pots and pots of perennials, shrubs and a pine tree that need to go in the ground, but I can't decide where, and it's getting so dang hot out there, I don't want to do anything but stay indoors in the AC. Our neighbor has a ginormous Kapok tree that recently, finally, finished dropping a couple million seeds encased in gallons of white fluff that coated our (and others') yard and I'm still picking fibers off everything and pulling the resulting seedlings whenever I come across them. They quickly form long, strong taproots and can be really hard to eradicate if you don't get them early. At least the rain helped wash a lot of it down - it was floating in the air and coating everything until the rains came. Advice for Floridians: DON'T PLANT A KAPOK TREE!