I'm with Greenthumb. Your gardens are lush and lovely. Thanks for sharing them.

-crunchpa, these are some of the best garden pics I have seen in a long while! It has certainly brightened my day and reminded me why I love gardening so much! I adore your arbor! Stunning. New York seems to be a wonderful place for growing beautiful, lush gardens. Thank you so much for posting. CMK

I got my plant of this probably 20+ years ago and was labelled P. domesticum variegata. Now I see it at Aroid Society booths at botanic garden sales labelled P. ilsemannii. They insist that's correct. I do also see it on the internet as imbe variegata, imbe albo-variegata, etc. I honestly think domesticum varieg is correct. My plants of this in the ground under oaks have leaves over 2 feet long and 12 to 13 inches wide. It's always been one of my favorites, pretty common now among collectors and the general public alike. I don't know how to post a picture here or I would, I'm pretty computer-illiterate. Russ central Fla

I'm okay that the flowers are pretty much finished (there's still some out there, they're just not good enough to cut and take to someone), and the leaves are continuing to fall. It's much easier now to see the structure of each rose. I can see exactly which canes to remove on the overgrown roses. Banshee and Shailer's Provence have each made a thicket of suckers that will soon threaten my path ... I can see exactly where they are and which ones to remove. Winter pruning will come later. The Gallicas and Hybrid Chinas will benefit from being shortened ... I'll wait till the deer have finished their part of the job, tho. The ramblers? Those few nice days in January are perfect for cleaning these up and reattaching them to their fence. I have also discovered camellias. I visited a garden earlier this month that had THE most lovely camellias. After that, I have started noticing them more and more. I have places in the gardens that are too shady for roses to thrive ... camellias fit the bill. I was in Richmond yesterday afternoon, and I just happened to go past a nursery that I know, and there's now 5 new camellias in the back of my Expedition. My husband calls them roses without thorns. :) When I am really pining for the garden, I work in the greenhouse. There is always at least one flower out there. Right now, off the top of my head, I know there's a flower on Dixieland Linda and Fresh Pink. York, one of my winter jobs is to add photos to HMF. There are a number of roses that I grow that have no photo on HMF at all ... I intend to fix this if I can. This is part of a goal for me to create an album of all of my roses (bush and portrait shots) to share. I'll get all organized with what I have so far as winter progresses, so I'll be ready to jump into action and photograph the once-bloomers when spring comes. and, if I have the time, I want to learn to weld. I have a lot of metal garden structures in my imagination, I just have to learn to weld so I can make them. Winter is a time to dream of spring. Connie Here is a link that might be useful: garden blog