A very nice shrub, I have two pruned to tree form along with several others as shrubs in the orchard. They live a long time too. I confess I had to look up the pronunciation as I always refer to them as "Serviceberry". My friend says "Sarvis Berry", but the garden would club say "Amelanchiers". Now I know how to pronounce it! Every year Cedar Wax Wings descend upon them and devour as many berries as they can, avoiding the angry Robin who has claimed them first.

Yours are lovely. Pretty area esp. with the white fence.

The two in tree form in the courtyard. Unfortunately not as pretty as yours because the blossoms were blown away yesterday! I would like to thin some of the inner branches of the one on the left.

The sad Live Oak tree in the front yard. I would love to take it down, but our 'community' requires that I submit a form to the architectural committee for approval. Then, I must plant another tree within 90 days; it must be at least 8' tall from the soil line (it's all sand) and it must be at least 2" in circumference.

The green tree is the neighbor's. Not a live oak.

Schoolhouse, my Serviceberry, or Shadblow, Amelanchier (whatever it's called in your area) is one of the more shrubby forms. It suckers profusely. If left go, it would take over the yard in a growing season. Robins are the main consumer of the berries here. Out of curiosity one year I did get enough to make a pie . Tasted great, but very seedy.

My new orchid pot. I'm always needing new pots to put the kiekis in. Dendrobium Kingianum.

That is a less commonly colored pot nicole--pretty. I treat my D. kingianums, and many other orchids, differently than most, because I like having fewer pots to water. I use a larger clay orchid container, then tuck the keikies around the parent plant. Eventually I had to divide the plant into two 10" pots, though. Love those Kingianums. They are so tough and easy! And they are in bloom for a long time.

I like the shrubby Serviceberries too, I've planted quite a few over the years. One shrub in the sunken garden has to be over 30yrs. old. Is showing some age finally, and has been blown over at least three times, but still blooms and puts out those suckers like you say. I try to keep it more open and bare at the bottom. It was purchased from a nursery that had entered it in a garden show and they had pruned it up so nicely. For the past seven years it's been propped up with a wooden "crutch"! I'm just too attached to it to cut it down, altho I have done some hard pruning in recent years.

I have heard the berries are safe to eat, but never tried them. At what point did you pick them - when they are dark red I suppose? Like you say, the Robins and other birds gobble them up even before they turn completely red so I probably would be hard up to gather many of them. What do they taste like?

Schoolhouse, they taste like a blueberry with a little blackberry thrown in. I pick them when blue with a tinge of red still evident. To me they are more tasty than blueberries. They are seedy, but make a pretty decent pie if you can tolerate the seeds. I planted those 6 Amelanchiers for the birds, but I eat them right off the shrub and enjoy them....when I can beat the birds to them.

gry_falcon....have you or anyone here, tried growing a cymbidium? Do you grow any other dendrobiums?

Yes, nicole, cymbidiums are super easy in our zone of SoCal. I leave all but one species type (warm grower) outside year round, except for bringing them indoors to enjoy the flowers. They sit on the patio under the pines with the D. kingianums, Coelogyne, many Bletillas, Sobralia, Tolumnia, Maxillaria, Phaius and whatever other orchids I may be forgetting. On the patio, they get very brief early morning and late evening sun, and bright/high shade the rest of the day. I used to grow many types of orchids, having 90+ at one time. But their care became overwhelming, so I narrowed the list down considerably to mostly no-fussers.