Renee -- Since Joseph's Coat didn't have the greatest foliage for you, might you consider instead 'Mutabilis.' It does the same marvelous color shifts, and is completely disease-free in California. I'm not sure where you are located, but if you are anywhere near Newbury Park, CA, there is an Heirloom garden where you can see a mature Mutabilis. Though it's considered more of a big shrub than a climber, this one was planted half under oak trees. In response, it has climbed up through the oaks in a very attractive manner. The location would be the Stagecoach Inn, Ventu Park Rd., Newbury Park, not far off the 101 Freeway. Jeri Here is a link that might be useful: Stagecoach Inn

I have big trouble with one of my 7 Purple Robe Locust trees. All look healthy except for this one. It made a feeble attempt to blossom and leaf out. The blossoms died off within 3 days. Now it has very minimal green leafing all over the tree (not just in one area) but the leaves wither in the middle of the day and look crispy. Late in the day close to sunset there is again minimal green leafing which lasts through to morning. I had a arborist look at it, he saw no borers and no obvious reason why it shouldn't be as healthy as the others. I've given it some SuperThrive but I'm afraid I'm going to lose it. If anyone has suggestions please help!

I had V. odorata and quite a few other fragrant violets growing on Long Island, New York as well as in Connecticut. They bloomed well without any fertilizer in a shady spot in the garden. I did have a healthy amount of mulch which had decayed in the soil and being woodland flowers, this would probably be a good addition to your garden. Dont give up on them. I too am struggling to have them flourish in my garden in Fort Lauderdale, Florida and have many die when planted in the soil. I now keep them in pots, again in a shady area but with filtered light. So far I have had one wonderfully fragrant violet thats just in the process of ending its bloom. I am about to try to find other fragrant violets - probably buy from Logees or Canyon Creek http://www.canyoncreeknursery.com/violets.html and I'll hover over them watching their growth in my clay pots here in the semi tropics!

Peanut butter tree in this region will be the Clerodendrum. It is a west-side item that will not survive the winters in Cashmere - even over here the coldest winters - such as the one in 1990 - kill them back. Here the main problem with the locust may be branch breakage, which can be sudden and severe on small examples. But there are numbers of it planted that have been around long enough to be more than 30 ft. high. Otherwise the common way to get moisture-loving trees to grow east of the mountains is to plant them on a heavily irrigated lawn. In addition to moist root zones specimens so located also enjoy the humidity produced by all the evaporation of water from the turf, which is very poor at shading the ground due to it being such a short layer of vegetation (when photographed from high altitudes grasslands appear as bare, brown dirt). Winter cold you can do nothing about except wrapping or enclosing each specimen in insulating materials every time it is going to be too cold for them. As with the watering issue it would be a lot easier to choose trees adapted to your existing conditions. As you can see from the native trees and shrubs growing on nearby undeveloped lands it is possible to have an assortment of woody ornamentals on a dry climate site without pouring on the water. In addition to those species native to the area there is the large pool of those coming from similar conditions elsewhere in the world to draw from. For ideas of other candidates you may like to visit and explore the Finch Arboretum in Spokane and the Yakima Area Arboretum in Yakima. Or at least look to see if either of these have online information about what trees and shrubs are in their collections or have become features there. These are conventional watered plantings made in lawns, for the most part. If you do some searching on the web there are also some publicly accessible demonstration gardens and plantings on that side of the mountains that may be of interest, including ones closer to home - in Wenatchee for instance. Another resource is the S. Searles book Garden of Joy. Used copies are offered online. This is about gardening in the inter-mountain region, shows that there is quite an assortment of decorative garden plants that are suited to planting within it. Otherwise you might like to find your Sunset Climate Zone in the Gardening section of the Sunset Publishing web site and then look at the plant descriptions there, to see what they indicate is suitable for your Zone. Or pick up a copy of the Sunset Western Garden Book. This post was edited by bboy on Thu, Dec 11, 14 at 12:58