I "found" her at a cemetery..it wasn't in bloom at the time..but I was intrigued because of the foliage and thorn arrangement..thought it might be special. I just looked it up on HMF..and you are right..that is my rose..I am going to enjoy growing this rose! I took the cuttings 2 summers ago, and this is the first bloom I've seen..and lots of them!! Thanks...Donna

Hi cxjr Those are such interesting plants you have there! The brom-in-a-coconut might be the start of a cool new fad. A bunch of them grouped together would look great on the deck of a pool where you could view them from down in the water. I wish I could see more of the bouganvillea where the aralias have left it stranded. Would it break the trunk of you stood it up and staked it to something sturdy? I love the gnarly bare trunk and it seems like growing a bouganvillea "tree" might enable you to keep it and emphasize its structure. I recently pruned an old, twisted giant purple that looked like it would soon engulf a little church. I ended up with several large trunks that needed to be propped with 2x4s to stand upright, and I think once it gets its strength to hold itself in that position and I can remove the supports, it will create a place we can walk under, with the blooming branches arching above. I saw a bouganvillea grown as a tree in Boca Grande 20 years ago and have wanted to try it myself. I hope you'll keep us posted as to what you do, and let us see your progress on the one you are bonsai-ing. Oh, one more thing . . . . I suspect your cute little plumeria cutting will soon outgrow its space. I am amazed at how fast they grow and how big they can get. What color is yours? Thanks for all the great pictures . . . and keep up the good work. Susie

I followed a link here from the Antique Rose forum, and posted a response there. I'm posting it again here, with a brief addition as to why it isn't a chimera. Chimeras result when an organism is composed of a mix of cells deriving from more than one zygote (fertilized egg). When you have a plant derived from asexual reproduction (as rose cultivars all are -- they are clones of an original plant), then every individual will thus have cells deriving from that first zygote. There may be mitotic errors (mistakes in cell copying) which can result in "sports" as seen in the third pic in the first post, but no plant grown from a cutting will contain genetic information from a different plant than the original (excepting, of course, for plants grown on a different rootstock, but in this case, there will be a delineation between one plant and the other at the graft union -- there will be no single branch or root which contains cells of both plants mixed together). Below is my response on the other thread: It's not a chimera -- that term gets tossed around incorrectly quite often. What this is is an example of a partial reversion or sporting -- there are pictures on HelpMeFind for 'Quatre Saisons Blanc Mousseau' showing similar partial reversions even within one flower. My thoughts on most "sports" is that they are not actually genetic mutations, but rather changes in how the genes are expressed, which is passed on via vegetative propagation (and also breeding, if the change in genetic expression is a result of methylation or a similar epigenetic phenomenon that is maintained in germ cells). The way it would work is like this -- when you see a branch "sporting" to a different flower color, or with the addition of moss, or into a climbing version, what you're seeing is genes present in the plant as a whole which are now expressed to a greater (or lesser) degree because of the arrangement of the DNA within the cells. But the actual sequence of genes remains the same. To give a simple explanation -- think of the genes as a list of ingredients in a recipe. The level of expression would be comparable to the quantities for each ingredient in the complete recipe. When a plant "sports" according to my idea, the ingredients don't change, but the quantities do. So if the recipe originally lists "eggs" and the quantity expressed is usually "2 eggs", a "sport" would result when, for whatever reason, the cell starts putting "4 eggs" into the recipe. This is a normal part of cell differentiation -- all our cells (except RBCs and eggs/sperm) contain all the same genes, but vary in the degree to which particular genes are expressed. This differentiation is usually fixed in most cells, with some exceptions. In plants, there is more flexibility regarding differentiation, allowing us to induce root cells to form on branches. It's probable that this "flexibility" leaves plants more prone to "sporting" than are animals. This change can result from proteins attached to the DNA strand, or methyl-group molecules, increasing or decreasing transcription rates of certain sections of the DNA. These changes can (but not always) be transmitted to offspring produced by sexual reproduction, but are most easily maintained in plants via asexual reproduction (i.e. taking a cutting of the "sported" branch). :-) ~Christopher

Yep. Particularly for me--- SoCal and indeterminate tomatoes. I'm doing "ok" with my beneficials but I'm still working on the diversity of plants to attract the pirate bugs and such. I'm still trying to figure out how to get some buckwheat and/or alfalfa into my tiny backyard. And I don't ever see yarrow or tansy seeds/seedlings at the garden centers. I was hoping that lacewings would be able to take care of these pests because I definitely am going to purchase some in the next week. I just don't want to shell out more money for the "other" beneficials if I don't have a nice home for them to put out future generations. Looks like UC IPM isn't as thorough for the tomato bug as they are for other pests. You never had to deal with them when you lived down here jean? Thanks Kevin