Lots of great new updates and pics, everyone, keep them coming. Love all of your tropicals, cast, plus the adeniums, plumerias, and blood orange pics too. Keep them coming. I love Epiphyllums too, although the only one I've had long term success with (ten years now) is Epiphyllum 'Curly', a contorted form of E. guatemalense. I bought it as a small cutting and it's become a very large plant the flowers regularly all spring and summer. Unfortunately the flowers are small, sort of a dingy off white, and disorganized, LOL, and they only open for a very few short hours well after midnight. Neat, curly leaves though, and pretty pink fruit. Here's a pic of mine from a week or so ago. Definitely grow it for the foliage, hah! I posted this on a separate thread too, but here's a quick pic of my Bauhinia galpinii blooming away. Finally, seedling #9 from my hand-pollination of stapelias (an annoyingly complex hidden lock-and-key mechanism, no dust-some-yellow-pollen-onto-a-stigma kind of thing) opened its first bloom this weekend. You can see traits of each parent: the size and stripes of Stapelia gigantea and the brick red color and some extra fur from S. hirsuta. Nothing fancy, but fun and easy, so why not share it, right? Happy gardening all! Grant

Phyl...yes, I am up in the night sometime. Most of the time I manage to get enough sleep, just not always at the usual hours. [g] Animals are sure hard to make sense of. I live in an urban area more than suburban and I have always been grateful that I don't have to worry about deer...but really I think a groundhog is worse. Which is what we have. Rabbits have rarely been a problem, but we have seen one in the yard this year. I have watched him out the window and so far, he has only been eating clover in the lawn and hopping into a neglected vegetable bed that has a great stand of volunteer greens in it. The woodchuck does not cut off the stems or plants. He seems to graze on the leaves and all that is left are the skeleton stems with a few buds on them. Squirrels have definitely been pests in my yard. I have seen them dig up plants in my planters and leave them to die all uprooted. I assume they are looking for nuts. They also had a feast on my Jade Plant, which I assume was due to it's moisture content. Just about every leaf had teeth marks in them. I was not amused, since I had just put it out for the summer. [g] I have seen a chipmunk in the yard. First time this year...just one at this point. I haven't seen any evidence of it bothering anything. I do feed the birds and it may find the birdseed drops from the feeders of interest. Moles/voles don't cut stems off I don't think. They just tunnel around making a mess and disturbing the roots of plants so some may die. So, I have no experience with an animal that just cuts off the stems and leaves them on the ground untouched. Don't you wish sometimes that someone would rent equipment to run video 24 hrs in your garden to catch the buggers in the act? [g] I did just find a reference that explains how to identify rabbit damage..here is the quote that I thought applied.. "Cottontails will devour a wide variety of green vegetation especially in the spring when young, succulent plant material is present. A listing of severely, moderately, and seldom damaged woody and herbaceous plants follows. Rabbit damage can be identified by gnawing on older woody growth, clean-cut clipping of young stems, distinctive round droppings, and tracks." Here is a link that might be useful: Ohio State Fact Sheet..Controling Rabbits in the Landscape

Holy cow, you guys are so nice! Thank you for all the wonderful and supportive comments. I feel coddled and well watered. -hope you didn't have to use to much fertilizer LOL newyorkrita- Thank you very much. I have seen pictures of your garden and I bet you could get a water feature in there. All your plants look so darn healthy! Jealous pout. Treelover- That is so nice to hear! I am a big fan of the blue garden. It is the one I see from my bedroom when I wake up. I find it very soothing. Those pink flowers in the second photo are columbine. Apparently they grow from seed pretty easy. Who knew? Oh, and the "very relaxed creature" is actually one of my dogs "babies". LOL I wondered if I should have mentioned it but I thought "hey no body will notice it." LOL Girlgroupgirl- Thank you so very much for saying so. I am really glad that you visited. :-) Schoolhouse- Thanks! I love those pansies, they started blooming in February and are still going strong. I like them with the forget me nots because they add something solid to the mix. Glenda- Truly that is a most wonderful compliment! Thank you. I over planted. I green housed 3,000 plants and thought I would surely lose a bunch. Nothing died, which definately surprised this desert rat! Thinman- Thank you so much for the warm welcome. :-) LOL about the plant combos. I just focused on not killing stuff! irene_dsc- Oh thank you from one blue flower lover to another. The blue garden is a small garden and the first thing I see when I wake up. It is so soothing to me. I am still working on finding just the right combo of blues to work in those micro climates. And it is about as hard as getting the right picture of it once I do. I will have to post a picture of the whole pond. Building that was a task not soon forgotten. ugh. floral_euphoria- Well thank you especially, as one newbie to another. I am so intimidated by all these beautiful gardens I see here. I planted every seed that sprouted and just packed it all in. Never met a seed I didn't plant. And a few sticks along the way as well. Nell- OWWW! I have terrible fantasies about losing my footing and falling into the fence and getting all tangled up while screaming "Don't tase me bro!" (I hope you all know that reference? If not you can look it up on Youtube, hillariously awful) It sounds like that must have been one heck of an eye opening moment for you. I sure do envy your long season but not your vipers and biters. :0 Flowerlady- Thank you for the welcome. Your compliment is very encouraging to me since I am full of newbie angst. Thank you. Goldenpond- Thanks! Do you have a pond? I'm curious because I'd like to see it if you do. I love ponds. alisande- LOL oh yes, I am sure it is my first effort. I just planted the dickens out of everything I thought would grow in those places. Now I am a nervous Nelly hoping everything actually works. Thank you so much for such a wonderful compliment! trailrunner- It means so much to me to hear that you liked it. :-) Thank you. I don't know about green thumb, I think it was more like a ton of manure. LOL hollyhocker_123- Wow.. I am speachless by this compliment. That is so incredibly nice of you to say. I just tried to choose plants that would grow in those conditions so I didn't have to fight them. Then I packed them in so I wouldn't have to weed. Hmm. Sounds like my method of gardening is "Lazy", well I just learned something new about myself. blondiesc- Oh thank you so much! You probably shouldn't encourage me to post more pictures though. I got a new camera for Christmas and a new garden to shoot with it. It's not going to be pretty for anyone on dial up. LOL

OHmygosh! And here I am whining about the squirrels - already chewing on one of the houseplants I set out on the deck and trying to get into the attic. We do have an owl that I hope is getting some of the squirrels - and I thought that was pretty wild, too. Of course I live in the middle of town, so I still think the owl and raccoons and everything else that shows up in my yard is pretty unusual. I had one lovely iris bloom greeting me when I walked out the side door to take out the trash this morning. They have spread and have buds all over them, unlike last year, when I got only one bloom. I was all set to move them because I thought they weren't getting enough sun, but I guess they like it there after all. My cannas have not come up yet, and I'm afraid I may have planted them too early. Reassurances, anyone, or do I need to replant? I spent the weekend rebuilding and painting a rotting trellis that was about to crumble under the honeysuckle and trumpet vine previous owners planted together there. Much more work than I expected, but my sweet son came home yesterday afternoon and said "Wow, That looks really good!" I don't know about that, but at least I've stopped the rotting for the moment, I hope. Correopsis finally showed its shy self. Gaillardia is getting TALL. And I think the caladium that was growing in the shade bed last year is coming back. Not positive yet, because it looks a little like the hosta that is also planted there, but just a little different. It was pretty well protected, and the winter wasn't real cold, so I thought it might try to come back. Boy, nothing grows better in that spot than caladium - so far, anyway.