I tortured this moso boo. Started as seedling and left it and 100 other siblings out in hot sun in one inch by one inch 1020 starter sets on my driveway all last year. Got drenched and dried all summer and only grew to two inches. Only 30 survived. Then brought inside house and baked in boiler room for most of winter till only about ten were alive. Then planted out in middle of winter to dog run. Were all top growth died back. Only one survived. Then my dog peed on it. This in my effort to make a new master race of moso bamboos. I deep dug this 10 foot circle and mixed in lots of leaf mulch, grass clipping. It has since been planted with P. Vivax "springhill" in the center. The rest around it is a tropicalesque garden with various aroids, bananas, callas, etc. I had to remove eight wheelbarrows of dirt after I was done digging I fluffed it up so much and added so much organics. Don't blame me for the horsy mailbox. That's my mother-in-laws doing. I love my wife so I had to put it up. Here's some of the plants I started from seed and the tropicalesque plants I'm putting in: I put in six laburnums last summer along the driveway and they are flowering: The Verbascum "Banana Custard" I planted last year are flowering: Not your usual verbascums the flowers are 2" across and as of today the plants are ten feet tall. My patch of 39 A. Sikokianums below are doing good. I just planted 6000 seeds I got from them in a 12 by 8 foot bed a week ago. Next I am having 3 trees chopped down so I can put in a vegi garden. I had to sell my lake and Herptile Preserve because it got to be too much for me.

I've been doing a lot of general cleanup and getting ready some new areas for next year. We finally got a fence across the front with some gates so now we can keep the dogs in the yard during the day while we're at work. And of course a fence is an opportunity to plant, right? This one is red brick(matches the house) along the bottom 20" and 4' of wrought iron on the top with brick pillars 18' apart. I hung out some Christmas decorations yesterday before I went to work, and today I have a sore throat and earache. So my boss is letting me take Saturday off, isn't he sweet? We had a large old native pecan tree struck by lightning about a month ago and not sure if it will live or die. It's so hard to tell if it's dead or just dormant, but it's smack in the middle of the front yard only about 50' from the house. But it's inside the fence so will be a part of the new area I will plant next Spring. I want to put lavender along the driveway. I have four large lavender plants out there already and they've done so well I thought I should just continue with that. I'll be shovel pruning about 8 roses this year out of the rose garden. Some have just not performed well, others I find I'm just not crazy about because of their lack of scent. Anyway, I thought I might wait till the Spring Plant Swap here in Fort Worth to take them out and pot them up, because rather than just waste them, I'm sure someone would love to take them home. They're all good, healthy plants, just not quite what I want out there. The back acre is really our problem child. I planted a bunch of wildflower seeds out there and I have my fingers crossed they'll come up. The instructions from Wildseed Farms recommended killing off all existing plants, raking the area free of all plant material and broadcasting the seed on the bare earth. Then water three times a day till seedlings emerge. Huh! Who has time to water three times a day? I just broadcase the seeds on the raked area that still had native plants growing in it. I just couldn't bear to kill off all the native flora. I guess I'll see if I wasted my seeds come Spring. The girls are all coming home for Christmas this year, so I'm gonna do some decking out in the yard next week. After they leave DH and I are going to Hawaii for a week vacation. THEN, it'll be time for some serious Spring planning. I'm just kind of milling about smartly in the yard for now waiting, waiting, waiting for the warm weather to come back. Everyone in the family is coming to my house for Christmas dinner this year so I'm thinking I should probably plan to prepare mass quantities of consumables for them all. I hope it's a warm Christmas day so I can take my mom out for a "yard tour" again. It's been a long time since she has been able to come out here, she's 81 and can't drive this far anymore. Well, I should probably write some of these things in my garden log instead of blabbing all day on the internet. But hey, you asked! Cheryl

I can't believe how warm it has been this last week. Yesterday we didn't feel the need to put a fire on in the morning or the evening. This kind of weather makes me have to go out and garden. We took out a very ugly fence to our chicken yard are trying to figure out where to put the new one. Would love to do something attractive as well as functional. A few days ago we went to a great nursery called Turner greenhouse, it's at the Turner's house in LV. Wow do they have a lot of plants, expecially succulents. After buying five different agaves I've been planting them to replace the winter damaged ones in the back yard. We got one called Zebra, Parryii truncata, gemniflora, and I think a varigated and a blue Murphy's. Oh, I did something sort of brave. We have a very large canary date palm in our front yard. I have never liked it and never felt it went with our house or our landscaping style but it is so big. I offered it to a landscaper I know and he sounds interested in it. Wish I would have done this four years ago when the tree was smaller and we would have had something nice and well established by now. Life is to short to keep plants around you don't like even if they are big and hard to get out. Also since winter is almost over it is definately time to get the mail ordering done. High Country Gardens here I come! Happy Gardening, Maria

I am doing the same kind of seasons page so that when I go home In can shoe my friends and family what the house looked like each season. Don't know how to set it up though. I am going to have some great pics to work with soon. I went whitewater rafting today and got some good pics. I also have a great idea for some pictures I took just after I got here. I have some loveley summer looking pictures(was Feb) and then the next day pictures was everything covered in snow. My title for the page I am going to do is "What a difference a day makes"