Well,I just scrolled through this entire thread and I am consumed with jealousy over your gardens. My little quarter acre doesn't allow for too many beds and my aging body does not either. The front of my house needs desperately to be relandscaped but digging out the old stuff is more than I can manage. It is raining buckets today and we have had a generally rainy spring. My peonies no sooner bloom than the rain beats them down. I was thrilled to see that a Kopper King Hibiscus that I relocated last year is coming back. It looked dead as a doornail, but now a big lovely shoot is coming up. My garden was not put together with much of a plan. I just add things as I fall in love with them. This year I added a deutzia. Here are my azaleas from earlier this spring along the driveway. I dug them out of my mother's woods about 35 years ago and I had no idea what colors they were, but I kind of like the mix. Here is my tree peony: What is the name of this pink flower? I know it is rather common, but I can never remember the name. It comes up all through my raised bed each spring and it is so adorable:

Copy the image address and paste it into the following phrase replacing the xxx with the image address and replacing the parentheses with the pointy brackets...less than/greater than signs (img src="xxx") If the image comes out too large, add a width constraint as follows (img src="xxx" width="600") I'm on a mac so if I CTRL click on an image, a menu pops up including copy image address.

Houzz is always changing my picture sizes! but I don't see a pattern as to when they will do it... sometimes it makes them larger, sometimes smaller, and other times they're unchanged. :p Glad you've figured it out now, Sue! Where's pattico? has she tried another upload yet?

Regarding biochar: I did a long thread on biochar last year, after testing it several times before a heavy rain. Very impressed with roses' health enabled by SOLUBLE calcium and potassium in biochar. I have been growing no-spray roses for over 2 decades. One drawback of biochar: it messed up old-rose scent, and The Dark Lady rose reeked like burnt wax .. but after tons of rain, its blooms revert back to fabulous old-rose. https://www.houzz.com/discussions/6003039/biochar-and-horse-manure-and-kelp-for-trace-elements#n=58 Below field-study documents biochar's effect on geraniums: https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4395/9/5/260 "The experiment was conducted in a greenhouse while using three different growth media (i.e., solid digestate, biochar, and vermiculite). The results indicated that: (i) the pyrolysis of solid digestate caused a reduction in the bulk density (−52%) and an increase in the pH (+16%) and electrical conductivity (+9.5%) in the derived biochar; (ii) the best crop performances (number of leaves, number of total branches, and plant dry weight) were found using biochar, particularly for plant dry weight (+11.4%) and essential oil content (+9.4%)" Below is The Dark Lady's bloom, very large thanks to SOLUBLE potassium & many petals thanks to SOLUBLE calcium from biochar. Left is W.S. 2000, center pink is Radio Times. My vote for the most drought-tolerant & prickly own-root Austin: The Dark Lady (has Rugosa heritage & drought-tolerant & blooms well in partial shade). Rose Unlimited stops selling Austin roses after this year, and I want a 2nd one. The Dark Lady was the best looking bush at Chicago Botanical garden, besides Buck's "Hi Neighbor" rose. Own-root dark lady blooming in partial shade, below small blooms were before biochar experiment: