I use both methods, depending on the client and whether they want to pay for a separate design or not. What I do find helpful if just winging it, is to really know your sun/shade exposure, sizes of mature plants, and work with a general scheme that has some overall organizing principle. As an example, I just went into a local specialty nursery and went wild buying plants for a new back yard remodel in the Oakland Hills of northern California. I basically knew that I wanted to play off some existing pale green timber bamboo trunks against an ochre stained concrete retaining wall, and that the client wanted to use tropicals and more color for this area, but also really liked foliage texture and color. Other key ingredients to work around included using a maroon colored Ensete ventricosum Maurellii as an accent plant, a very large specimen New Zealand Tree Fern as another focal point, and a mature existing Windmill Palm/Trachycarpus fortunei. I knew I only had small areas of full sun, and mostly shaded raised beds, and wanted to give a lush, tropical look as seen from inside the house. The client also wanted flowers to attract hummingbirds and butterflies. I also thought I wanted to emphasize mid fall into winter blooms, with lots of orange and purple accents, as the garden is to be installed in the next couple of weeks, and needs to look good for a garden tour on October 20th. With that in mind, I selected some foliage plants such as the gorgeous Hedychium greenei with purple stems and underside of leaves and orange flowers blooming now, and some deep green with even deeper purple underside of leaves Clerodendron quadroliculare to play off the maroon of the banana, and situated them above eye level so that the leaf undersides would feature prominently. I also added understory plantings with a purple foliage theme such as Oxalis spiralis vulcanicola Burgundy and Billbergia 'Bill', along with purple tinged foliage of the compact bushy Euphorbia Jade Dragon to complete the purple element. I also knew that I wanted a good amount of orange foliage and blooms, and could not resist the fall foliage color of a Poncirius trifoliata Flying Dragon as a complement to the Ensete, with a mass planting of a dwarf shrubby Coprosma Evening Glow to pick up this color, and further another Oxalis, O. s. v. Sunset Velvet to trail over walls as well. The orange flowers will come from several Abutilons such as A. megapotamica Marianne and A. m. Halo as well as the gorgeous Abutilon Victor Reiter. Clumps of a narrow leafed compact form of Clivia miniata will also star as mass ground cover below the Tree Fern. Yellow accents for shade to brighten up the darker corners will rely on a Alpinia zerumbet variegata, the yellow star like flowers of the Oxalis spiralis, and the variegated yellow stripes of bromeliads such as Neoregelia Bossa Nova. Greens to complement the bamboo trunks will mostly feature grassy foliage clumps of Dianella intermedia, and various Restios such as Elegia capensis, some slightly stiffer upright clumping Restio tetraphyllus with beautiful chartreuse foliage, and an accent Elegia fistula with very interesting seed heads. Clumps of the Chinese Banana, Musella lasiocarpa will also serve as understory to the taller growing Ensete, mirroring the form of the taller, while also giving some screening of mechanical equipment, and the added bonus of the bright yellow artichoke like flower as summer accents. Some other accent plants to carry the maroon theme beyond the Ensete into sunnier parts of the garden at the raised patio beyond will include the tropical Ricinus communis New Zealand Purple with the deep purple foliage and rosy red flowers, and the tropical vining Purple Wings vine, Dalechampia dioscoreifolia to cover a rear fence. A Grevillea Robyn Gordon for flashes of red and entice the hummingbirds year round will combine with our native Zaushneria also in fall bloom with scarlet flowers and soft gray foliage. In late winter, the Pincushion Protea, Leucospermum cordifolium Yellow Bird will provide yellow accents, and play off the deep purple blooms of the tree like Tibouchina urvilleana. Clumps of the large soft shrubby Salvia splendens Van Houttei are also massed here and there to give a burgundy red tint to carry the red/purple theme throughout the garden. I was tempted to go in several different directions while I was shopping at the nursery, but had to remind myself that I only had so much room to plant, and that each plant had to fit into the color and texture theme that was established by the existing timber bamboo and Red Abyssinian Banana. I must admit it is a pleasure to be able to design a garden for mid fall into winter that will be showy and colorful, and not have to wait until spring for such impact, but it does mean that one has to have a working familiarity with what works with our local climate, and can be depended upon for year round impact without looking ratty in winter. I probably could have done this all in plan as well, but the client always seems to respond better when I just show up with the proposed plants and start placing them in the garden. I suppose it also allows him more input, as we debate the locations and combinations, and end up tweaking my ideas in response to his suggestions. We have enough practice at this by now to be able to persuade him to locate plants with the proper sun/shade orientation and allow for mature sizes. I try to pay attention to his requests to locate certain plants where he insists he wants them, and come up with suggestions that are similar when the sun/shade or size doesn't work for his request. It does force me to put on my thinking cap and be able to suggest similar alternatives that will work. So could you say this is both careful planning and making it up as you go? To me, it certainly seems to combine a bit of both, or would you call it semi restrained anarchy? With all that in mind

I appreciate your hard work, but I think an "average" date would be misleading to people who are new to hummingbirds. These people don't understand that hummers don't migrate en mass - there can be months between birds heading north AS the data you've accumulated shows (62 days! WOW!). Furthermore, the dates for the FIRST hummers is important for atleast two reasons. 1. Early in the season there may not be as many natural food sources and a feeder out early enough may mean life or death for an early hummer. The first dates are a great wake-up call, as in "Really, they've been sighted nearby - I need to get my feeder out" 2. People who are trying to attract hummers to their yards probably don't want to wait until the migration season is half over to put out their feeder. They want EVERY bird who comes by to discover it, remember it and return. The earlier your feeder goes out the more migrating birds that can use it - the more fun we have watching! I hope this doesn't sound like I'm criticizing your work. I understand your frustration, seeing that hummers are in your area but not seeing them. Maybe Lanny could put a disclaimer on his actual map page noting that hummers migrate individually and it may take months for migrating birds to pass through an area. Remember even his map doesn't neccessarily show the first hummers - just the ones humans spotted and reported. Thank you for your hard work - it's a great chart!

Hi irish rose grower! If you have been following my threads you will know that I did the feeder a little longer than a full year before I saw a hummer at it and now I have one male that comes 3 times in the early morning and 3 times as the sun goes down. I now also have 2 or 3 females that come all day long. Looking back at it all now I am wondering if I may have had a few visit last year and not even known it as I looked at the feeder a few times a day, but I now see that unless we are as lucky as hummersteve that my approach to seeing hummers last year was not enough. Even with 3 or 4 regular birds visiting my feeders everyday it is rare that I just look out and see one there. It does happen, maybe once or twice a day, but the typical experience for me is to sit there and look and usually within 5 minutes one will come along. Usually one will come and feed quickly and run back off! I would say that the average stay at the feeder seems to be 20 to 30 seconds, with some as short as 5 and some up to a minute. They are small and fast! Not having a feeder could make it harder to just look out and find one as the flower possiblities are far more than just looking at a feeder quickly. If you have not done so I would suggest putting a chair outside at least 15 to 20 feet from some of the plants that you think they would like this time of the year and sit fairly still for a half hour and enjoy your garden. Best time might be 7:30pm. They might surprise you with a quick fly in and fly out. I grew up on LI. Moved one state over about 13 years ago.

Thank you everyone for coming to the swap. What a difference a weeks makes. Couldn't have been more perfect weather, especially after last weekend. It was and is my pleasure to host the swap every spring, and plan on doing so for a lot more years. Agnes you beat me to the link with the recipe. Tara, now what good is a large yard with grass growing in it. costs money to keep it growing, way to much water to keep it green and we end up with water bans, restrictions all over the place, so how do you water the lawns?, patch the lawns and keep the grass seed wet so it will germinate, seedlings grow etc. Yup, tis why my front lawn looks like it does. We've had permanent water restrictions in town for years and years now and there is a fine for watering on the wrong day. Trust me, the town is eager for money and they travel around just looking for someone watering on the wrong day. If I'm going to water on alternate days, then it's going to be water used to grown my plants and garden beds, not lawns. Zazheen, not a problem with the wagon. Melissa took it with her, got in her car and now the kids have it. Melissa, thanks but no thanks, the wagon is yours, but as Mark said, he would love to see pictures of the "newly renovated wagon" when it's done. Now if you want to turn those kids into wonderful gardeners, got the perfect plan for you, just call or shoot me an email and I'll be glad to tell you all about it. Again, thanks everyone for coming, enjoy all the new "babies" and how about posting some pics to show all of us how they look when they bloom. Fran