In: White painted arbors for climbing old garden roses. Lots of old garden roses - climbers and bushes. Stacked stone edging my flower beds. Flagstone patio in my front yard behind a white picket fence (since the grass won't grow in the shade of my dogwoods). Brick house painted white with black shutters on ALL the windows so it looks more like a cottage. More of what grows well - irises of all kinds, early blooming peonies, lots of daylilies, salvias, hostas and shasta daisies. Ivy and boxwood topiaries in pots. Clematis growing up into my roses. Organic fertilizers. Some evergreens to give structure in the winter. Mulch and more mulch. Intentional color combinations :-) Out: Unremarkable azaleas, free to good homes. Anything that looks like it's constantly struggling to survive. Large overgrown hedges of privet (I think that's what it was) that were covered in powdery mildew most of the year. (Hopefully) some of my tall pine trees that worry me in a storm - if one falls, I could be toast. As much lawn as I can get rid of. Ivy as a groundcover that grows up the trees and harbors all kinds of bugs & critters. "Low maintenance" plantings that are boring that came with the house. Hydrangeas - some of them might have to go since they look so pitiful in the winter. Any plant that I find I just don't like for no good reason at all - life is too short. bloominganne

Laura, that definitely looks like Miami Rose. The second one rings a bell but it doesn't look like either Nebel's/Lei or Intense Rainbow--wrong color pattern and petal shape. Still a beautiful flower, though! George, I'm sure that that isn't a J105. J105 always has white on the petals, plus a very large bronze/gold center with pink or red only on the edges. I don't believe it can ever get entirely red or pink like yours. And the shape is different. Link below to a good representative pic. Here is a link that might be useful: J105

How funny, Grace! I just found this lovely as well and was looking for another... couldn’t figure out why it was labeled as a fern, either. Scooby-Do mystery solved- I’m from Las Vegas as well! Looks like we got a batch of mislabeled heart leaf ferns from Corey Nursery Co in Claremont California! Think I bought mine at Lowe’s or Home Depot... Big thanks to lauticada for finding it!

Two years ago, paper wasps built a nest underneath the glass top of my patio table, which is shaded by an umbrella. Neighborhood cats routinely used the chairs of the table for sleeping, and I daily used the top of the table as a landing spot for garden stuff. We all got along, and I was able to watch the nest progress through the glass. It was really interesting. One year back when I had a cherry tree, I put up my ladder one foot from a beautiful bald-faced hornets nest, and picked cherries for a couple of hours. Bald-faced hornets are not aggressive, and they went about their business, as did I. A number of years ago, yellow jackets took up residence in a compost bin I hadn’t turned in a while. By August, I decided they had to go, but without pesticides. I used a large-diameter insect net, and each day after work I stood in their line of flight and waved the net in a figure-eight motion. The yellow jackets really didn’t like the net, and flew right in trying to attack. I netted over 800 yellow jackets over probably two weeks. Towards the end of that process, I could tell the population was declining, and eventually I saw yellow jackets flying out carrying eggs, which made me a little sad. I hope the population was able to re-establish in a different place. I was never stung, either while I was netting them, or before, when over 800 were flying around the yard. The above commenter is right: most insects are intent on their business and leave us alone as long as we leave them alone.