Hi River, I definitely saw more butterflies, monarch in particular, this year than last year, but I can't say why -- I started most of my perennial butterfly plants this year, so I knew there weren't going to be many (or any) blooms, and the heat wave slowed everything down just that much further. That said, I do have a Potter's Purple butterfly bush that's a year old now, and it was a blooming machine this Spring/Summer/Fall. That plant drew the most butterflies and hummingbirds hands down. Butterflies using it were Monarchs, Painted Ladies, American Ladies, Black Swallowtails, Pipevine Swallowtails, hummingbird moths, and a lot of moths and skippers and sulphers that I can't even begin to identify. Anyway, plants! Butterfly magnets: *Butterfly bush 'Potter's Purple' Tropical Milkweed (Still blooming, actually, and there's still a couple of Monarch caterpillars on it right now.) Salvia azurea (I grow other salvias, but this one is visited most by butterflies that I've noticed.) Parsley. I always grow a bunch for Black Swallowtails caterpillars. I have so-so luck growing dill, but parsley is dead easy. Hummingbird magnets: *Anisacanthus quadrifidus var. wrightii -- Hummingbird bush. The biggest draw, after the butterfly bush. Salvia coccinea (red preferred over other colors) Salvia greggii Monarda citriodora -- Lemon Bee Balm. It was probably the first thing blooming in my garden this Spring, so I guess that's why the hummingbirds used it? I didn't know it was a hummingbird plant. Completely ignored by everything: Agastache rupestris Agastache 'Tutti-Frutti' 'Profusion' zinnias Coneflowers (all) Bee balms (no blooms, doh!) Only thing I can guess on the plants that flowered but were ignored is that it was too hot for them to produce pollen and nectar. The plan for next year is to grow more asclepias species, old fashioned tall zinnias, more salivas (never enough salvias, bwa ha ha), various liatris, random natives, and Lantana horrida (L. urticoides). Maybe the bee balms will bloom next year. Better luck next Spring! Meg

Well summarized Joe. I'll say Will that having a relatively maintance free "garden" is virtually and without question, impossible. You like Dave and folks with immense amounts of plants in a close proximity will always have the 'disadvantage' of hand-weeding and needing to continuously move plants - throughout your entire life-time. A life's project. Re watering: Once your plants are in the ground for two years you shouldn't need to water but every month for dry spells. I rarely water. New trees, however, I will water every three weeks but only if there hasn't been a single drip of rain. Otherwise, they too are only going to get watered, once-monthly. When I do water I water extremely deep. This can take me up to two full days for the probably 400-500 plantings I have. I've created an arboretum for myself and I believe this can be accomplished on the small property, as well. It's all about spacing plants, and 'time'/planned-lifespan, and nothing more. There are enough well-known plants available these days that 30 years ago conifer witch broom hunters were just seeing 10-year growth rates from. That being said, the answer is 'how long do I want this landscape, plan, to be pursued?' Some may say I'm 'lucky' to have six acres, however, for six years I lived on a postmark size property that I "preached" the same 'strategy' of proper plant spacing for a future garden. This is the advantage of being able to garden thru a lifetime aging along with the trees/shrubs and always being able to take care of your gardens throughout your old ages, because conifer gardens along with woody plants as companions allow a person to do this... knowing this at the age of 36 is a blessing in my opinion. My plantings are solitary - however this does not mean that I cannot link them together as beds. All my life I will be able to fill up a tank sprayer with roundup and shoot weeds from the seat of my garden mower, it's that simple for me. The same tank I can use to water, as well. Once a specimen becomes permanetely-established, (remembering I am on six acres) I won't even mulch them. In fact of the hundreds upon hundreds of seedling-conifers I've planted since 2007, almost none of them have I ever mulched. Like you say, I have different "blood" running thru me and am extremely impressed with the fantastic combinations of plants that some of you are able to maintain, for me the same gardens would become a mess because I'm not a "maintenance gardener" - flowers are beyond my realm of possibilty. Instead, my showplace is an arboretum/pinetum setting, where I can evaluate different species or cultivars within this setting... that also allows the plants to grow to absolute maturity. The minimum I space my individual plants, in time, is 50 years. Most however, are spaced for 100 years or a lifetime. My closing thoughts are, this will also be a "garden" with the attached label of, an arboretum. Time will be of the essence, here... trees will take shape and provide interest, quickly; and the rest of the mini's and dwarfs will show their presence during the next 5-100+ years. ------------- Dax

Wow mtn, those sound like amazing trips. I truly believe the planning part of the trip is almost as pleasureable as the trip itself. But I love to plan and research, sounds like you do too. I read recently that spending money on travel can make good economic sense in terms of value for money spent. First you research, plan and dream of the trip, then you do it, then you continue to reap benefits through memories, photos and the knowledge (and possible friendships) you gain. I'm convinced! :) Regarding MP in December, the issue is rain. Given your time constraints I'm guessing you're not hiking in on the Inca trail? It could be miserable hiking (unless you enjoy hiking in the rain, many people do. I'm a wimp though). If you're not hiking try to leave yourself a couple of days open to make the ascent by train/bus from Cusco. That way you should have enough flexibility to get up there in a rain free window. Cusco is a wonderful place to spend a couple of days. I didn't make it to Lake Titicaca, but I've heard it is definitely worth the trip. I enjoyed the Nazca lines ( we flew over them) in Peru, and the pyramids near Trujillo. I didn't make it to the Peruvian amazon, wish I did. And I just loved th Pisco Sour I had in Pisco! I had planned a nearly year long trip for 2016, my kids will be in grades 3 and 6 then. I wanted to circle the Pacific, down through Peru and Chile, to Easter Island, then on to NZ, Australa, up through Asia to Vladivostok then back to Vancouver. It would be an incredible learning experience for them, but I'm starting to pull back a bit. First it is likely too ambitious with relatively young kids, ie exhausting. Second, my kids go to school in French and a year away from French may be too much. So I may just take the easy path and spend the better part of the year based in France, with frequent excursions around Europe. Fun planning regardless. I've lived in St. Lucia, Austria (Vienna), Russia (Moscow & St. Petersburg), the UK (outside London) along with some shorter working stints in Bosnia and Romania. My parents spent a decade in Costa Rica, so I spent a fair bit of time there too, and in Panama. Most of my young adulthood was spent in Europe, or planning to get to Europe, so my travel experience in largely Euro based. I need to get out more! :)

Just wanted to pop in and say, no, I am not in hibernation. I actually check the forum at least every other day, there just hasn't been anything in which I could add my two cents. That and since around February my back has been giving me more fits than usual, so I haven't been able to spend as much time working the beds as I would have liked, but I do get out there when I can. It has been more or less dry around here with the storms going by us more than passing over us. When we do get rain, it is a quick downpour that doesn't do a lot in the way of hydrating the ground. On one hand, many of my plants were chosen to handle this type of weather and they are doing fine. On the other hand, some plants that could stand a bit more rain, bananas, tomatoes and other 'crop' plants, aren't performing as well as they could. The issues with my back means I haven't been lugging around the water cans like I have in the past and I sometimes wish I had set up automagic drip systems... though our water has had unusually high amounts of chlorine in it. I lost all the fish in my pond from a light topping off (that never before bothered them) and we even lost one of our cockatiels. We have a new park manager and I think he is overdoing the chlorine, but a recent water survey from the park owner says the chlorine is 'within norms'. We've installed water filters to remove the chlorine from our drinking water and I am thinking about adding a whole-house filter. So there you go, a quickish update from Waypoint.