I am south of you, near San Jose. To fulfill the same requirements, I just bought Heaven On Earth (JP FL) . It came very very hightly recommended. I also have Jubilee Celebration and Christopher Marlow (ER). They just finished their first year they are very pretty and fregrant. I have Crown Princess Margareta, Golden Celebrationm and Ab. Darby, but they will grow big and climbery in our zone. You can contact Regan Nursary in Fremont. They are local and specialized in roses. So their advice will be accurate for our climate. Good luck, FJ

We aren't like southern California here, it hardly ever gets up into the 80'sF for days at a time, when we do have a heat wave, it usually only lasts for 3 or 4 days at a time. Let's not forget that we have cool summer nights here as well, which is probably the key factor that makes our local climate more similar to high elevation Lesotho climate in summer. Worrying about too much heat just isn't an issue in the gardens where I am planting these, so I don't sweat the details besides planting them at an angle rather than facing straight up. I don't think it would make a difference one way or another if these Aloes were not surrounded by other plants, it doesn't get hot enough here to stress them. It just seems like places like Berkeley/Oakland/San Francisco/Santa Cruz are perfect temperature climates for these to grow very easily. Not all of the SF Bay Area is as perfect a climate for Aloe polyphylla. Friends who try and grow them in areas such as Walnut Creek or Atherton need to plant them out of full sun, because they do die from too much heat there.

To compost, it needs to stay as wet as a wrung-out sponge, so cover it and do whatever you can to keep it moist. I keep a covered 3-gallon bucket in my car to collect kitchen compost, artichoke-cooking water (too bitter to reuse), pasta-cooking water (if I don't plan to reuse it), and the like, and it all goes into the compost when I go to my garden. You could ask for a compost bin on your local freecycle -- it'll look nicer and retain moisture better. You may be able to encourage lizards by creating some habitat for them -- loose rock or brush piles. I haven't built anything special for lizards, but I saw a huge (foot long?) lizard under the borage a few days ago! Rats :) eat snails and slugs, and you don't even need to build them any habitat. If you have a source of liquidambar fruits (those spiky balls that are all over streets and sidewalks), you can put them around the beds you want to protect. I experimented with them as a snail barrier one year. I've also experimented with a coffee-grounds moat around a garden bed to repel slugs. (Results were inconclusive in both cases.)

Mary, I too, was expecting a picture that would make me feel better about the state of my own garden:) You certainly have nothing to be ashamed of. Your front yard is a work in progress. I have seen front yards that don't look half that nice, and those people considered it good(and finished). With the drought in CA, ugly front yards are almost becoming the norm around here. Yours is far from ugly, AND your working to improve it. I've found that people on this forum are very friendly and eager to help. They've been better than any book or article because my specific questions get answered, for my specific climate, rose, soil, yard, etc.... I love this place! It helps everyone give better advice when they can get a visual. I think a fence with big tea(or climbing) roses planted on the inside would be lovely. They will grow up and over the fence, cascading down on the street side. I'm betting the fence won't even be visible once the roses really grow in. Having the roses inside your fence also means more of your rose care can be done from the more private side of the fence. I'm not all that fond of being watched as I go about my gardening. I like to wear my junkiest clothes for gardening. The clarkia looked great. The good thing about them is the way they self seed and you get a ton of fresh plants next spring. I always look forward to seeing them return. Is the white flower on the right a clarkia as well? I had a beautiful white one 2 years ago, but for some reason I didn't get any white seedlings this past spring. They do make great cut flowers though, so it's possible that I didn't leave much on the plant to produce seed. How about a picture of your backyard now? We all love pictures. I have both Felicia and Cornelia. I'm debating about where to place Cornelia and its outgrowing its container. Time to make up my mind! Seeing yours might help me out:) Lisa