it's a fern-leaf aralia: Polyscias Filicifolia. i have one too. you need to pinch the top often or prune a few nodes down and root the top. otherwise it will be too leggy. it grows quite fast. the care is the same as for ming aralia.

Hi all - yes, although it takes forever to load, our online extravaganza is certainly a visual splendour! Congrats to all involved. Jaga - I knew that question was coming -about attaching the larger broms to trees. Friends of mine also use large staples over the stolon to attach, with great success. Older brom growers tell me to use old stockings/pantyhose, but I have found more updated material better. Stockings are generally used very heavy-handedly, wrapped around and around the base of plant and tree branch - and then overtime it bleaches whitish, and to my eye, becomes an eyesore. I prefer to make the attaching material as non-obvious as possible, trying to create a more natural effect. After much trial and error, I have found the use of a stretchy fabric called "ribbing" suits my needs best. It is similar to "lycra", and comes in different colours. I buy mine at an outlet called "Spotlight" - something similar in N.Z.? It comes in a circular metre, and one metre at approx. AU$10 will tie over a hundred broms - certainly cheaper than potting mix. I usually get the dark brown ribbing, as this colour blends best with most of the branches of my trees. Sometimes I use a lighter grey, for paler bark. Over time, the tie either wears away, or becomes covered by brom roots. By then the brom is usually self-supported, and subsequent pups root along the branch by themselves, or the original plant on branch supports the stoloniferous types in mid-air. With good quality dressmakers scissors, I cut long strips of ribbing, about 2 -3 cm wide (1 inch), on the stretch warp. When this is stretched, it becomes narrower. The stretchiness gives a tighter tension for a firm hold. I do not use sphagnum moss, or anything else between the brom and the branch. The reason for this is so that when the roots grow, they attach immediately to the host branch/trunk, securing the brom a.s.a.p. Sometimes, the brom can still fall out of tree in strong wind, and although it may have formed roots, it is not directly attached to the tree, and the whole base comes off. The stoloniferous broms are the easiest to attach, and I simply wind the ribbing around the stolon and branch, usually in a crossed formation, and tie firmly with a simple 'reef' knot (right over left and under, left over right and under). If the tie is too obvious, I disguise it with a bit of 'old man's beard'. Attaching non-stoloniferous broms is harder to describe. Often the brom, when removed from its pot, already has an established root system with chunks of bark still attached. I use this extra matter as a base for tying, attaching and winding the ribbing over all sides of the mix and branch. If the branch/trunk is a vertical one, and the brom has many leaves already - eg. an established vriesea - then I usually need to thread the tie between the lower or middle layer of leaves, easily disguised, and tie to the trunk a bit higher than the base, as well as tied at the base. This keeps the brom more upright and supported, and relieves pressure from the base tie - make sense??? It really depends on what you are attaching, and common sense dictates the best way to do it. Another thing - most people think that the 'branch crotches' are best to use - yes they are good, especially for attaching an established brom - but I like the effect of the brom free-standing along the branch, so the form can be viewed unimpeded. Hanwc - I use both pups and established broms in trees. Broms like Ae. blanchetiana are too big and heavy if over half-grown. Up a ladder with only me, a large brom and my two hands, I usually hold the tie/ties in my teeth (!), and often have to use my head to support the brom while I tie it on! Hope this info is of help/interest. Cheers, Tarzan - oops, I mean Kerry :)

Aloysia, if you happen to come this way you are cordially invited to pass some time here. We have a guest room so there is no problems if you need to pass the night here.My wife Melissa will show you our 200 varieties of roses, she is very proud of her garden and so am I. Ottavio Hello, Aloysia! Ottavio wrote this and I second it. We like to show our garden (and I think it's worth seeing), and we have room and time. I'll probably be in the U.S. this summer during most of July and August and the first week or so in September, about two months all together. Aside from that, we're usually at home. Melissa P.S. (returning to drought gardening:) It's very dry here too, probably similar to what's happening where you are. My established plants are fine so far, and the roses are blooming handsomely. I don't know how they'll be doing if the drought goes on for months, however. It's worrying. There's nothing mysterious about my naming all the plants you already have in your garden: we both just have a pretty good idea of what will grow in your conditions. Good luck on finding an oak tree! Also, there are plants characteristic of the Mediterranean 'macchia', that ought to do well in your coastal conditions, but I don't know them that well. I don't know what happened to those irises, but evidently no one cared enough about them to save them when the place they were growing was turned to some other use. The lack of appreciation is maddening, and it's comforting to hear from a person like you who notices and takes care of her local plants. I don't know what kind of irises I have, though they're mostly primitive kinds, tall bearded irises anyway. I also have Iris foetidissima and I. ochroleuca, which is fairly common here. I'm looking for iris books and catalogs from iris nurseries I can buy so I'll have more pictures and more information. Unfortunately most pictures of irises show only the flower, while photos of the plant would be very useful for identification purposes. I expect that in a year or two I'll know more about irises than is currently the case. Melissa

Part Korean rhododendron, hence the early bloom. I've got a species rhododendron that looks like it's an Arborea type (it was given to me, so I was not familiar with it before it came to the garden) that flowers after the New Year. It has been peeping out for awhile now. The group of plants it came in were all recent Rhododendron Species Botanical Garden introductions, one of them being of uncertain identification at that time - it may be that one.