Nolantew, I know the old winery you mentioned. When we were kids, we used to drive down to that vinery from the Las Vegas, Nv area and buy gallons of their wine and have a "all Southern Nevada welcome party" out in the middle of nowhere in the dessert. Somehow, the cops would find us and everybody would scatter. I always made note of the "Millikin Road" because my last name is Millick. I never did aquire the mission grape vine that I was looking for. I got busy on something else and now, years have gone by. I think I'll start looking for them again with the info left by the other good people. Thanks for everything, John

The day spent at San Marcos Nursery was exceptional. It was their once yearly open field day and the speakers were wonderful , - Brian Kemble from the Bancroft Garden, Randy Baldwin from SM and Brett Hall from UC. Bot. Garden. There were so many wonderful new plants to view and take note of. I fell inlove with several new horticultural gems and took 3 pages of descriptive notes on 'must have' plants. Many may be familiar with a wild looking Bansksia called B. baxteri., but I had never come across it before and just had to purchase one. The foliage is something for a Dr. Suess garden on sterioids and the flower is very wild looking ! Many new Agaves took my breath away such as A. 'Blue Flame' and the nursery specimens of A. 'Sharkskin' were beautiful ! Be on the lookout for a new Cordyline introduction called Cordyline Jurred Festival Grass - It has the look of Phormium Dazzler but the dark shimmering deep rich burgandy foliage is even more vibrant than Phormium Dazzler. Another 2 new fabulous introductions are Cyperus papyrus 'King Tut' ( worthy of King status ) and a very cool colored Dyckia 'Catus Ranch Red'. Lotus Land was wonderful , as always. The topiary garden has really grown in since the last time that I was there and the Cycad garden has just about fully recovered from that awful soil borne disease infection that plagued that garden several years ago. The newly refurbished catus garden looks great with all the basalt stone columns interspersed in with the tall catus plants,the natural stone columns inflict a kind of out of this world / moonscape type of feel. The local downtown parks were a delight to walk threw. Alice Keck Park was being enjoyed by a ton of people enjoying the warm fall day. I was suprised at how little use the ocean side park called " Shipwreck Park" designed by George Girvin ( an old classmate ) was being used. I could not make any sense of it because it is such a lovely interactive and beautifully designed park. I asked a young local family about this and they had a lot to say about it. They mentioned that there are no neighboring houses surrounding the park and that despite the parking lot located across the main driving avenue that people just did not find the park convenient unless there was a major event to draw them down to the park. Guess this is something that just landscape architects and city planners would be interested in. And of course there were lots of interesting little front yard gardens in the down town neighborhoods.

Woo hoo !! I received 2 cards today !! Thank you for the ox eyed daisy seeds Angela/Yotetrapper and thank you for the rudbeckia and sneezeweed lol Nancy/NLB52 !! Boy it sure is nice to find goodies in my mailbox after a long day at work !! this is awesome !! Merry Christmas !! ~Iris

This is such a wonderful swap! Wonderful cards with warm holiday greetings and seeds for the new year! I can't believe it, but I received even more cards! You are all sooooo generous! From Margirta10 came a lovely snowman card with a snowman angel and "BELIEVE" on the front. Wonderful sentiment for this time of year! Inside were packets of Giant California mixed zinnias, white phlox, Pastel Carpet mixed alyssum and Tall Deluxe mixed snapdragons. Thanks so much - I love them all! A Happy Holiday stocking card came from Melinda/ilovefarac with one of my all time favorites --Hyacinth beans. woohoo! Thanks, Melinda! Karendee sent a hilarious card. Santa is standing with a shopping cart full of flowers and long shopping list. On the front it reads, "Seeds 'n Greetings!" Inside were another one of my favorites - mixed larkspur! Thanks, Karen! Funny larkspur story -- maybe some of you have had this happen to you... The first time the larkspur reseeded, it went outside the flower beds and into the yard a few feet from the original beds. Some of them were in such numbers that I went out and surrounded it with bricks so my DH wouldn't mow it down. I told him I was going to expand the flower beds - and that's what I did. Couldn't have had a better reason to expand the flower beds! Thanks so much for all the seeds and warm wishes! ~Kathy