Well, I'm given er like gang busters!lol! I'm gonna completely cover this puppy, and then grout it with black outdoor grout. Or blue.. any hoo it is made of stained glass that I use my mosaic nippers to cut up, because I'm not cutting out a pattern, it's going really fast. I love it cuz I'm using my scrap glass!!! I have sooo much glass and it feels good to be using it! And glass looks so awesome out in the yard! I'm really liking that some of the glass is irridecent cuz it really blings when the sun hits it! coming along... Globe lit up

I had stems of ruscus left over from a bouquet, as well--they'd stayed green in the water for months. When the nodes started "sprouting", I attempted to plant them in soil, even though I didn't see anything that really looked like roots. Once out of the water and into the soil, they died. More recently, I got another stem from another bouquet and just left it in water. Many of the "leaves" (cladodes) have bloomed with a little floral sprig (very much like Laura Billingsley's photo, above), so I considered just trying to bury a cladode with a good little cluster to see if the "sprout" would grow into a plant. But according to this extremely helpful article https://laidbackgardener.blog/2021/10/29/strange-protuberances-on-a-leaf/, it's really just a flower bloom, and you can't propagate anything from flowers (I'd have WAY too many camellias in my garden, if this were possible!). According to the article, you just can't propagate Israeli ruscus from cuttings - you either have to have an actual plant and divide it, or you have to have seeds. I'll keep the cutting and see if anything else happens, but I think that to have any hope whatsoever, I'd have to get at least one of the cladodes to put out a berry, from which I could get seeds. Unfortunately, you really need male and female plants for that, so the chances are slim. But it's still cute!

Technically, we are in the subtropics, not a temperate zone. And we really don't get four distinct seasons... more like two: a long summer, and then what I like to call yo-yo weather the rest of the year. Summer weather starts up mid-to-late-May and runs till mid-to-late-September. We may have hot weather in October, but it isn't the stultifying heat of summer. We do get freezes each year; some years we get snow, but it is flat here in the coastal plain, so the danger of steep landscapes in snow isn't a worry here. Not-summer weather can range from upper-twenties (Fahrenheit) to temps in the seventies and eighties. It is rare for us to have freezing temps for more than a few hours, though, so the freeze-and-thaw cycle that can wreak havoc with areas in zones 6 & 7 aren't usually a problem here. We've had two freeze warnings in recent weeks, but still no freezes. I know, because I still have many coleus plants in the yard, and though they look pretty tatty at this point, they are still alive, and a few are still blooming and providing nectar to their biggest fans, the bees. That will end once we actually get temps below freezing. They will re-seed, though- I have little use for annuals that don't. Roses here don't actually need winter protection, but I have toyed with the idea of moving my two Hybrid Chinas to a colder part of the yard to see if that might encourage spring blooms, but it's hard to determine where those colder zones might be; the ground is quite flat, and we have trees providing wind protection throughout the yard. Last winter was unusually warm, so it remains to be seen if what passes for normal winter weather will provide sufficient winter chill for those two, and my other once-blooming roses. As for autumn color, there are a few Japanese Maples in the neighborhood, that look quite pretty with their yellow leaves. We don't have a hickory, but our pecan tree (related to hickory) does a dismal job of providing any color-the leaves turn brown and fall right off. We do have a couple of gumball trees (Liquidambar styraciflua) in the wilder area beyond the back fence, and they have yellow leaves in fall and early winter. I know folks like to complain about the spiky seeds, but they are such a benefit to wildlife, and the seedballs are not much of a nuisance out where our trees are. Also in the back area there are some wild grapes, at least two types of Smilax, Virginia Creeper and Peppervine that provide fruit in the fall and winter. I do try to keep those plants from seeding in the yard itself. In the same area, there are a few invasives that I try to do battle with despite lack of easy access: privet (we call it disgustrum), Japanese honeysuckle and Russian olive. These plants may be better-behaved elsewhere, but are not wanted here. Virginia

Sheila, glad you like my reportage, even when it's not about roses. Good luck with your irrigation system, and all the other tasks. I know I have plenty of company in the Society of Those Who Have Too Much to Do in the Garden. Jackie, it is feeling rather like a nursery level of activity, and how remarkable that all those plants are SOMEHOW going to get absorbed into the garden. I need to think about the pergolas: I know roughly what I want, but need to write down dimensions and numbers. Spring has been wonderfully mild, i.e. no heat yet, but some warmth during the day, and somehow despite the drought the garden is finding the moisture it needs. 'Clementina Carbonieri' (of commerce), cutting grown, nearly twenty years old, and sprawling all over the escarpment, is having a notable spring flowering. This rose's blooms fry easily in hot dry weather, and they die off badly as well, so that much of the time it's not terribly satisfactory (though the plant is always wonderfully healthy); but when it's on, it's on. This weather is perfect for it, and the plant is loaded with large, full blooms the color of tropical fruit juice: for those who don't know CC, a mixture of gold and hot pink and orange, reading at a little distance as soft bright orange. The contrast with the young laburnums I planted above CC, blooming now in pure bright yellow, is amazing if not tasteful. Talking with DD last night I compared it with Milan's Pride Parade. You don't want that kind of gaudy festival in the garden everywhere and all the time, but every once in a while, it's just the ticket.