If you want to look at the Upton Grey gardens as a sort of living museum, the "unnatural" and "time-warp" comments are irrelevant. Many aspects of life as lived a hundred years ago would seem that way today: fashion, social conventions, etc. GJ herself would have been an anomaly, an independent thinker, and unmarried, though she did have the support of her well-off family. As a private garden for even the most enthusiastic gardener of moderate means, it's totally impractical. Could you imagine doing the tennis lawn maintenance she describes annually? In that sense, the time warp comment is apt. GJ was designing gardens at a time when household servants and gardeners were still affordable. I believe (correct me if I'm wrong) it was around WWI that social changes in Britain made it impossible to find household help cheaply. I'm struck by the author's commitment to see the project through and admire her courage. She made a lot of mistakes (some of them over and over, inexplicably, like the pond debacle and the repeated planting of cannas too early) but you've got to give her a lot of credit for putting herself out there and risking embarrassment before the stream of gardening bigwigs who came to see her efforts in the early years. I personally don't think I could live with the restrictions she puts on herself regarding plant materials. Her strict adherence to the original plan and plant selections are the only way to give garden visitors a look at an authentic GJ garden, but I'm sure the designer would be using modern improved varieties if she were alive today. Especially with the thugs and disease prone roses. Yuck. Jo

Our book club is a Mystery Book club. Last year we did something different, we picked a theme. We had to pick books that were either Hard-boiled detective or Medical mystery. We liked the theme idea, so this year we picked for our theme, International and Police Procedural mysteries. We don't usually pick a specific book, because there might not be enough books available at the public library for everyone. Instead we pick a series by a specific author. Last year our selections were: Linda Fairstein - Any Alex Cooper Any book by Elizabeth Becka/Lisa Black Walter Mosley - Any Easy Rawlins Michael Palmer - Any book Raymond Chandler Richard Stark - Any Parker novel Tess Gerritsen - Any Rizzoli & Isles Dashiell Hammett Ross Pennie - Dr. Zol Szabl Robert B. Parker - Any Spenser novel We haven't picked all the books for this year yet. So far we have: Michael Robotham - Say YouâÂÂre Sorry Jussi Adler-Olson - Any Alexander McCall Smith - No 1 Ladiesâ Detective Agency series - Any Michael Connelly - Harry Bosch series

Kathy- I just got The Storied Life of A.J. Fikrey and so far, I love it! Thanks for the recommendation : ) I finished the book....and I really enjoyed the first half. I think if it had ended there, I would have recommended it to many of my friends. The second half seemed like too many gaps in time and not enough detail. Almost like a different book. Maybe that was intentional or just to keep it short, but I didn't care for it. The ending was not my favorite (don't really like that type) but before any of that was even suspected, it started feeling a bit different around the topiary park. That was when it seemed unrealistic to me. I mean, do people all really act like that? One and done...then long term relationships? And Maya was so cute as a little girl. I felt like I missed a lot of her growing up. Also, I really liked the chief, but thought the closet find (and his reaction) was too contrived. Maybe someone else, but not him. This really helped though, so thank you for the recommendation! It made me realize what I like and didn't like about the pacing and this will help me layout my own story. Oh, and it was funny that I signed up for a free month of Unlimited Kindle to read the book, after starting the free peek on Amazon. Then, I got to his rant about e-readers! LOL

Both. Sometimes you start separating the pot - and out of 10 babies one will come up with dark leaves instead of light - or vice versa - and one with birthmarked leaves. These are to be discarded. (Unless you are curious...) Very high light can stimulate the production of anthocyanins - purple pigments- to protect the tissues from extra light - kind of sunscreen. It will darken the leaves - and the reverse will be splotchy purple instead of light green, Dark leaves already have enough sunscreen - so they take more light - and eventually start bleaching - probably with mild burns on a surface that will produce some cork-like tissue - will work as a sunscreen as well.