Pittosporum tobira won't work. It likes shade to partial shade and will burn in full sun/reflected heat. It is also not considered desert-adapted due to their high water needs. Keep in mind the mature size of whatever you plant. A tree that has a mature width of 10 feet should be planted 5 feet away from your wall. Here are my sugggestions: Palo Blanco (Acacia williardiana) 20 feet tall x 10 feet wide, graceful branches with white trunk Mexican Bird of Paradise (Caesalpinia mexicana) 10 x 8, evergreen with yellow flowers nearly year round Texas Olive (Cordia boissieri) 10 x 10, evergreen with crisp white flowers spring to fall Hop Bush (Dodonaea viscosa) 10 x 8, evergreen, low litter Orange Bells (Tecoma hybrid) 8 x 5, tubular orange flowers Yellow Bells (Tecoma stans v stans) 8 x 5, tubular yellow flowers You can view these and more on line at the link below. Here is a link that might be useful: Landscape Plants for the Arizona Desert

Hey, Mikki, congratulations! I am betting you won't be disappointed. I'm a vet (sower, that is), having done this for nine years now, and just moved to a new home June of 2010 in northern AL after 14 years in Gardenweed's area. I have an amazing number of wintersown plants established now already, with plans to do a lot more this year. As far as organization goes: I used to keep a spreadsheet with name, botanical name, container # (I still # my containers - I have a lot, and it helps me to cross-check easily), date sown, date germinated, date transplanted, source (gathered, trade or commercial), year packed/gathered, whether or not there were seeds left over, height and color information. It got to be too much for me, so now I just keep a notebook I hand write in: date sown, container #, botanical or common name, source & year, seeds left?, germination date?, transplant date. Much easier for me. Organizing seeds, and I have a LOT (thousands): I separate into 3 large categories - commercial, trade, gathered. Gathered, which is the smallest, gets separated by year gathered, then alphabetized. The other two, which have tons of seeds, get separated into type (annual, perennial, vegetable, herb) and year. Trade seeds then go into the emptied small boxes that held the coin envelopes I use to pack my own trades, marked with year and type. Commercial seeds get alphabetized and held together with a rubber band. The whole shebang gets stored in two rather large plastic containers (potentially 3 this coming year....)to stay cool & dry. For the most part, this insures that I can find a particular variety from my 60-something page "Seeds I Have" list easily. I recommend having less seeds, but I am a full-fledged member of SA (Seedaholics Anonymous). Most important is to have fun - you will develop your own style, more or less different from everyone else's, as you go. Nope, not dancing nekkid on Solstice - don't much like the cold! :)

Hi, again. I went to the nursery this weekend with a friend that I garden with and we came back with some four-foot Swan, Unique, Limelight, The Moth, and Quick Fire. And some pictures. If you want, I'll email you the original pictures which would be larger files and better quality than the ones that I've got at Photobucket. And I'll post or send you some more pictures of the Swan that I took, similar or different, if you want. The Swan in the pot we bought and the ones planted out in the Nursery had been kept pruned to encourage a tighter structure (and I'm getting the idea that this is an uphill battle with this plant), and so the pictures might not reflect the real habit of the plant or its flowering. When I first approached the planted Swans, I thought that they were suffering from a lack of water, but, I think the droopiness is the nature of the plant. The owner of the nursery is a fan of hydrangeas and said that this droopiness with the wonderfully large-petaled (sepals?) flowers will be appreciated when it gets to be a large speciman. Another thing you see with this plant, especially in comparison to all the other varieties planted out along side it, is that the plant is a much paler shade of green than the other varieties. This is all very much fun. I haven't had much experience with the Paniculatas, but here I go. Hay.

Hi Everyone, Thank you, you are all very kind. It is a truly ecclectic mix, but that was sort of my signature style in design, "relaxed formality". Old and new. Inherited and acquired. Reclaimed and restored. Found and fixed. We ALL have it in us, just find what makes you comfortable. And yes, my place is heavy on mirrors (and I missed a few!). Since I need to retake the DR photos tomorrow when it is light out I'll try to get the BR and one other mirror. igloochic, are my kitties out of place? If so, I will send them with the desk. But my babies being Persian, then I need to send you the Persian carpets (there are three, room-sized) that they go with. And if I send those ... LOL! L, We are using an old oak kitchen table in the dining room. It is impossible to entertain with. We shipped our stuff here before we even had a place to live and opted for a small table which will go in the kitchen in the Victorian house. I will buy a mahogany DT (or maybe a 10' farm table or something of the sort) at auction when I return to the states. I have a great gold-tan and sage green silk set with tons of pillows and a full canopy in the bedroom. The problem is the bedroom is TINY and it is near impossible to get a good angle but maybe I'll try again this tomorrow. Again, thank you all. B