countrygirl and judy - could i have a little gus b too?? I hope you find something that you do not have to take from me. i can probably take a few smaller pots off your hands. tamelask I have some bamboo(not sure what kind yet) and/or I can bring you some red dianthus slips for the alstromeria Laura I have the tall white phlox pulled for you. thank you for the wood spurge. Ratgirl I looked and I have a several hostas. what do you already have? see you all tomorrow.

This freeze has separated the hardy from the tender of the Southern Hemisphere stuff as well. I'm looking mostly at my container stock that didn't make it into the greenhouse, whose damage to their upper parts is still instructive regardless of the state of the root system. My best Callistemon by far is C. viridiflorus (that's the real C. viridiflorus, not the Youngblood Nursery mislabeled one showing up in Seattle area retail nurseries lately).... easily hardier than others including 'Woodlanders Hardy'. Corokias are all pretty much tender.... none really did that great but C. cotoneaster was the best. Cassinia x Ozothamnus is impressively hardy, as is Brachyglottis monroi, Olearia x haastii and O. paniculata. Pittosporum colensoi is my best NZ Pittosporum. Araucaria angustifolia (100+ of them) has burned leaf tips but growing points are still fine. Astelia... forget it, dead. Eucalyptus are mostly dead but I'm really impressed with a couple forms of E. rubida and E. camphora which I'm surprised to see unharmed. I'll do a full report later but I want to wait just a little bit longer so that my information will be as accurate as possible. The lowest temperature here was 13F, which was reached in both the morning and the evening of the coldest day. I'm planning a better organized eucalyptus test garden to trial some of the best provenances of the hardiest species. With good documentation this time and a more limited, deliberate selection of plants, I hope it will prove to be an instructive test. I'll probably skip E. scoparia; I just don't think it is that hardy although it continues to persist in Olympia. I hope I can get this project underway this year.

Glad you liked the pics. Mary, I planted the Pseudopanax ferox in 2006. I planted P. crassifolius nearby at the same time but it croaked in the sort-of-bad winter of 2006-07. So ferox wins. I hope it gets big and if it dies I like your idea. I just did 50+ cuttings of that Podocarpus salignus so there will be plenty of those available later if I don't kill them all. (I think I brought a couple to Fronderosa) I originally got it from Colvos Creek. It's surprising how readily cuttings on that assume apical dominance. Lagarostrobos franklinii has been there for years... very slow. But cool. It's also easy from cuttings.... I think I did about 25 cuttings of it. I don't know what happened to the elk; maybe they all swam to Hawaii to look for food. I haven't seen them yet this year at all. Cascadians, the only real loss is the Cupressus. With so many trees I expect a couple major losses like that every year.... last year it was that Pinus patula. Everything else can be fixed. No need to freak out, just be patient! PS. don't stake your trees too tightly - I think it's better to use rope to secure them or else prop them up with a hefty branch. Most eucs are inclined to lean and there's usually no point in trying to stop them.

Wow - this thread has really taken off, hasnt it ? Thanks again to everyone for their suggestions. I am reasonably au fait with most of the suggestions for the feature tree, with the exception of the bottle tree, but plants such as Native Gardenia are something of an unknown. I am also very wary of the impact of the Rocky sun on many rainforest species, even those marked 'full sun' : establishing the microclimate which allows these plants to take full sun is probably better left to species such as acacia and melaleuca. Experience has taught me that there are exceptions, and the Penda in my last garden has gone from strength to strength in the furnace that is our afternoon sun - its currently alive with yellow flowers and is bushy right to its bootstraps. I have recommended the various E. Ficifolia / E. Ptychocarpa hybrids (now Corymbias, I believe) to my friend, but the grafted rootstock seems to constrain them to no more than 5-6 metres, and I believe that I need something more in the 12m plus range to shield the front of the house from the blistering afternoon sun. It also needs to be sufficiently dense at the top to make 'worthwhile' shade, without being a menace to people standing beneath it. Ultimately, it will come down to the stock that Fitzroy Nurseries have in May - most of the other nurseries just dont persist with anything larger than 14" pots. I'll let you know how I get on. Cheers, Artie