I absolutely love ginger, but I wasn't able to post to this before. I also love ginger flowers and have several types of ginger in my yard now. The blue ginger is blooming right now (see link below), but I also have red and white gingers, none of which are edible, but some of the flowers have very nice fragrances that are quite unique. As for edible ginger, I keep a jar of ginger paste (from an Indian market) that I use in soups, marinades, and stir fries, but not desserts. For desserts, I use ginger that I keep in the freezer. I should probably grow edible ginger. I bought ginger snaps at TJ's last week-end (along with some other more decadent cookies), but I think I should have made them myself. They were good but not quite gingery enough. I don't have any dried ginger. Lars Here is a link that might be useful:

Our job took 3 slabs so 2 of them were a bookmatched pair and the third one was the next one in sequence (the one that had its rough face against the rough face against one of the pair. Since its polished face was 4 cm away in the block of granite from the polished faces of the other two, its pattern was very similar to theirs but there was some drift. Our L counter has a sink leg that was longer than the long dimension of the slabs and longer than twice the short dimension. The other leg was longer than the short dimension of the slabs. That means there was no way to lay it out on the slabs so that all seams were bookmatched. (If both legs are no longer than the long dimension of a slab, they can lay it out with a diagonal bookmatched seam in the corner. Our kitchen fabricator doesn't like to do the diagonal seam, but in our case it didn't matter because of the long leg.) The only way to do our counter with only one seam was for the seam to be at the sink or dishwasher. Fabricators seem to be divided on whether a seam at the sink is good or bad, but over the dishwasher is more of an issue because there is no cabinet front for support. We wanted the seam at the sink because it let us have just one seam and our fabricator preferred that as well. Our granite is 2 cm with a plywood underlay so it is well supported at the sink by the plywood and cabinet. Our granite is very active, but the grain doesn't have a strong direction - in some areas, it slants across the slab and in others it was pretty swirly. We spent a couple of hours with the fabricator laying out the templates on the slabs. We were doing granite backsplashes and wanted a good match between the counter and backsplash and also had to fit long pieces for our window sill and counter outside the kitchen window. We chose a placement where the two sides of the seam were in a swirly part of the granite. I can see the seam when I look for it, but I don't notice it otherwise even though the color match at the back of the sink isn't perfect. Recently we had a surround made for a new fireplace from the remnants from our kitchen. The top and one side came from one piece and the other side came from another piece because those were the only remnants long and wide enough. I think the fabricator did a good job of positioning the pieces on the remnants so that the seams aren't jarring even though the long direction of the top piece was parallel to the long direction of one of the side pieces on the same remnant. BTW, the left and right side pieces came from the same part of the slab on the two slabs that were back to back - you can see that they are close to mirror images of each other around the white smile-shaped mark but the darker area a foot or two below the "smile" shows more differences.

Barbara Pym is a great favorite of mine - try Excellent Women. Her books are wonderful, and the characters are beautifully drawn and live very realistic lives without being raped and murdered. A fun YA novel that I discovered here at RP (thank you, whoever it was!) is Sorcery and Cecilia, or The Enchanted Chocolate Pot by Patricia Wrede and Caroline Stevermer. There are three books in the series, if you like the first one. I can't remember the quote exactly, nor who said it (an artist, I believe) but to paraphrase - why is it only valid or artistic to evoke negative emotions or feelings? Why isn't happiness just as important? Why, as an artist, does one have to defend oneself for making people smile? I have thought of this nearly every day since I heard it. Go ahead and read happy books, draw pretty bright colored flowers, and don't be afraid of being thought shallow if you want to, at least occasionally, leave the darkness behind.

Ragna, When I moved onto this property, there were no trees. I knew that I wanted to plant something along the driveway. It turned out to be the Monterrey Oak. Glad I chose that. Temple City Parks dept raises many different types of trees. They will tell you that it is the BEST tree and MOST REQUESTED of any that they grow here to plant anywhere around the greater area of Temple. They do go drought tolerant relatively quickly. I also used Mycorrhizael Fungi tablets to try to help get the roots going. That must have been about 4 1/2 yrs ago. My camera is hiding, surely it can't be my housekeeping. Otherwise, I'd take a picture of it for you. Was told that if you will continue to provide water that it will grow faster. Holds onto its leaves through Winter, but I swear, I can't find any leaves over the past 4 yrs that dropped after Winter. I'm really at a loss to figure out where they go cause you know that leaves don't stay on trees for that long. It would be an excellent tree for you. My guess is that with everything you have growing there, that you'll end up needing to transplant something. Hard to believe that you wouldn't. If you didn't have to transplant a full sun plant, then you've got a tree that doesn't provide the type of canopy that you want for shade. Of course, even our Full Sun plants do appreciate some shade, but this oak will make a denser shade than many of the others mentioned above. I've realized the same problem here. I've been pouring over perennials to buy when I should have been searching out trees instead. But, my beds weren't finished. Heck, they weren't even begun. I had to finish the Hummingbird Bed before I could ID where to plant some other trees. I've made my grocery list now, but they might not be what you are looking for: - Wafer Ash growing in nothing but Full Sun and I want another one to plant relatively close so their canopies will meet. You might consider planting two trees whose canopy will meet sooner. - Mexican Plum drops a lot of fruit so, that will be a bit of a mess. - Anacacho Orchid probably won't make a very dense shade. Check out the ones that are planted at the San Antonio Arboretum so as to qualify the shade. Getting two to plant near the deck - one on each side. Also 3 to go out into the Hellstrip. - I had to nix one because it doesn't grow here in our alkaline soil. I can't imagine a nursery near us that grows for alkaline soil. Go figure. My guess, would be that the Red Buckeye not in high demand here since it needs more acid soil. The requirements that I gave for my yard was that they needed to be pollinator friendly. But with my list, I'll have to wait till the next beds are completed before I start thinking "Trees" again. With Leslie Roy providing dappled shade, you might prefer that for your plants. I've spread my pesos as far as I can considering the number of small trees that I'll be planting. Earlier this year, I bought a Pakistani Mulberry that I'm hoping will produce next year. Another idea would be a Pecan tree. They go drought tolerant quickly as well with that long tap root of theirs. But, I'm guessing you already have one of those. Good luck with your decision. I realized that I was late to this party since it was a couple of weeks ago since you posted this question. Of course, you know that everyone is eager to hear the vote on which one you decided upon.