I live near San Francisco, in California , which also has one of the few Med. climates. We have 3-4 months of continuous drought, each year during summer, so water preservation is a concern. Any plant i list here regarding water use, is a mature sized plant. Drought tolerant: I've never watered any of the Mexican Sage, which were on my property when I bought it, because they never need it. Long flowers of a deep lavender hue attract hummingbirds every day. c. 5 feet tall by just as wide. There are many forms of salvia that are drought tolerant. - It took me a long time to take to Succulents, but after I remembered my grandmothers growing ' Hens and Chicks' in her cottage garden, I added a dozen or so to my rose garden. I have several growing in a low bowl shaped container to show off their growth habit. I find their smooth texture adds interest to a rose garden. Pomegranite I keep mine to c. 5' tall by 6 feet wide, by never watering it. Since reading that the climbing rose, 'Sombruiel' is drought tolerant in our area, I plan to move mine so it is in the same bed as the Pom. Mexican Primrose, pink flowers that bloom nearly constantly through summer. plants are about 2 and 1/2 feet tall. can be invasive if given the right conditions. -Allysium, the white form has longer roots and needs less water. -Many of the native Med. plants are drought tolerant, allysium, lavender et cet. Shrub;'Breath of Heaven' has a great scent, and can be grown as a fragrant hedge. Last year I decided that any plant in my garden was going to receive a minimal amount of water during our drought and those that lived could remain. This did, to my great delight. Snow in summer' sorry I forgot the Latin name which begins with C... a low growing plant that spreads over an area of c. a yard. silvery green foliage and small white flowers. Rose Campion, another med. native that has silvery gray leaves. a flower that has been growing in cottage gardens for hundreds of years. I have it growing beside 'Westside Road Cream Tea' I do like herbs planted amongst my roses: smaller forms of rosemary, oregano, there's some fancy forms 'Kent Beauty ' is one of those, mother of thyme makes a deep green carpet and the flowers keep the bees happy. Lemon verbena near a path gives off a lovely and refreshing scent as one walks by and touches it. Poets Jasmine, again on a north facing wall so the shade lessens its' need for water. I'd plant it by a pink remontant rose as the jasmine does not re-bloom. Nasturtium. The hummingbirds love 'Empress of India', a red nasturtium. Forget-me-nots, I plant them on the sides of rosebushes where they only get half a days sun, and need less water that way. Average water: Scabiosa, there's a mauve form and a purple form that are very pretty. Violets and Parma violets give winter interest, Parma violets are water wise plants when grown in partial shade. Pelagoniums, I grew up calling them Geraniums, I have 'Roxanne' and 'Electric Blue'. Lilys. I prefer the scented Oriental lilys to the scentless Asian hybrids. I had to move all my 'Casablanca' lilies to a pot on a pedestal because snails ate an entire bed of my lilies. Water Wise, (Not quite drought tolerant, need to be watered twice a month in summer here) Lavender. I water French Lavender 2-3 times during a summer and Spanish lavender once a month. I find the shorter forms of lavender need watering more often so I don't grow them anymore. I plant any of my largest rosebushes which don't need support furthest out from the faucet, because they get watered only once a month in summer, and rarely in the other seasons because we do get some rain (usually) the rest of the year. Large self-supporting rosebushes: spray 'Cecille Brunner' I've seen this grown so it has one large basal cane and been pruned: -Into a large balloon shaped shrub. -into a hedge. Each plant makes a wonderfully fragrant hedge with good re-bloom, c. 8 feet long, by 3-4 feet tall, depending on how tall the person wanted it. My neighbor grows hers on the side of a shed. Mme. Alfred Carriere, this is drought tolerant when mature, in our climate. I only watered it twice this summer. I keep it to c. 6 feet tall by c. 5 feet wide, by shearing it 2-3 times back, each summer. Monsieur Tillier, can reach 10 feet tall by nearly as wide. In general the larger the canopy of a large rosebush, the deeper the roots grow, and are able to access levels of water that shorter rosebushes cannot. Susan Louise' a marvelous Hybrid Gigantea that blooms from February through December locally. Produces large roses in profusion that are a fresh hue of pink. Can be grown as a self supporting shrub, c. 18' tall by 9' across, which has the sillouette of an apple tree if limbed, I've also seen it grown as a 25 foot long climber on a 4 foot tall fence. A nice but light fragrance. - since your sister loves Lady Hillingdon, perhaps she'd like 'Anna Olivier' a shapely honey hued Tea rose with an intense fragrance, it's more richly hued sport is called 'Lady Roberts' and I envy her having such a sublime rose given her name. -Mrs. B.R.Cant' big pink roses on a big plant. I water this only half as often as I do my smaller rosebushes, such as my Hybrid Teas, and it doesn't seem to mind. Clematis; I plant them on the North side of the house so they get shade, and therefore need less watering. c. jackmanni is easy to grow. Best wishes Luxrosa

So sorry about the loss of your dear son. Can't imagine your pain. My sister lost her only daughter 7 years ago to cancer at age 29. She was like my own baby girl. She was so tough. Made jokes about the cancer right up to the end. We used to have a heavy competition with games on her Atari when she was 9-10 or so. When she called me in to say her goodbyes, she said that whenever I see a blank TV or computer screen she would be playing Atari with me from heaven. I had totally forgotten about it, it had been so long. She left each of us with such personal goodbyes. She asked me to take care of her mom, she said mom will be busy taking care of her brothers and my niece's own little boys but mom needed looking after too. One of our favorite moments was after a month or more of not being able to keep down a single drop of water, she asked for a beer. So at 9:00 in the morning, her brother smuggled in a 12 pack. And my niece, her brothers, her parents, doctor and her pastor had their beers. Niece had 2! She didn't feel too well the next morning, but she felt triumphant at her accomplishment.

10a sounds more like Waikanae than Wellington. You can over-winter peppers. I've done that with the small ornamentals and been successful but they wither at the whiff of a cool night. Serious heat-lovers - along with tomatoes. Garlic: I'm not sure about more, bigger, sooner. There are those baggies of very white coated garlic they bring in from China. The Warehouse has seed garlic, though I've only seen it, not grown it. And, if you have friends in Blenheim area - lots of garlic grown there - and harvested in February. (In time for wine festivals, ripening figs, and other decadences...) Some of my garlic clumps stay in the ground all year to keep the roses company. Every so often they flower. I suspect that soil type and aspect probably has a lot to do with size and speed. A sandy-ish soil with added humus more than recent compost might be part of the answer. With the peppers - I think that this year I'll go for biggish containers and all the sun I can get, plus protection to hurry them along. By the time they consider flowering and fruiting, if I plant at Labour Weekend, it's nearly time to close down for winter! I don't enjoy the sort of Mediterranean climate that they seem to thrive in. Some of the GW sites are friendly and welcoming - Rocky Mountains and Bulbs, for example. And the frugal gardening people who were all wekas in a past life, I'm sure. Particular people are well worth heeding - calistoga, who is great on container gardening and general things, lindac, pnwgal48 who gardens on a pocket handkerchief and works as a horticulturalist - really knows her plants and growing conditions, donnabaskets for bulbs - and chemocurl, mr subjunctive for house plants. They are all kind and usually courteous to newbies. Fun places to be include Name That Plant! where people from anywhere and all over post their pictures of plants they can't name - common and not-known-in-NZ. And the Weeds... there are some nightmares I hope we never see here. Kudzu grass. Eek! The UK site is also useful. And the Pacific North West - Washington State and Oregon - are most like us, as well as coastal British Columbia in Canada. The Californians are pleased to say how their 9 zones are nothing like ours - and I agree. Worse than Central Otago in mid summer. (So's the mid west. As bad as Aus with temps into the late thirties and early forties.) Hope that helps. I'm out to deck the plants with clouds of frost cloths. Tra-la-la-la-la...

The word "meme" was coined by Richard Dawkins, in his book The Selfish Gene. It is intended to be an analogy with "gene", so is clearly pronounced to rhyme with "cream". (And, in any case, he says so in the book!) Basically, he suggested that culture is basically made up of memes, rather as DNA is made up of in genes. Memes are replicators, as are genes. I'm not sure the idea ever really gained much traction, but the name stuck. Nowadays, memes tends to mean anything on the internet which has become sort-of common knowledge and copies itself around - things like LOL and emoticons are often called "internet memes". The Selfish Gene was published in 1976 - so the word itself is quite old.