We have a 12 foot tall tree stump in our garden that was left that tall because the tree company charged less to not have to remove those large bottom sections from a relatively inaccessible back yard. I asked them to make a couple extra cuts to the top of it, forming a point like a roof peak. An inverted v . Then I had my husband put large pieces of bark overlapping like shingles (you could purchase cedar shakes to do the same) to cover the "roof". Then we drilled a hole to look like the entrance. Squirrels sit or lie on top, and now that the wood is beginning to decay, woodpeckers and other birds have been checking out the hole and pecking at it to enlarge it.... I have encouraged ivy to grow up it (it's shady) and when it turns red in the fall it looks pretty. Also, we found a true-to-scale wooden bird and attached it to the trunk. I love it. I had been thinking of carving a bunch of steps in a circular arrangement up the outside of the trunk, but since it was an oak, it has retained it's bark and really looks great just as is. I'm looking forward to all the fungi , etc. it will probably provide as it decays, and who knows, the birds may become successful someday at hollowing it out. This is my first comment on the forum, so I don't know how to post a picture yet, but you get the idea.....

I just posted to the Neptune thread a few minutes ago about mounding in pots. Take a piece of card board box and cut it to the height of the canes of your plants, plus two or three inches. Create a cylinder from it, remove a couple of inches of soil from your potted roses and slip the cylinder into the pots, allowing it to expand to fit the pot opening. Staple the ends together with overlap so they don't open to allow water and soil to spill out. Fill the cylinder to the level required so only the top one to two inches of canes stick up out of the soil. The goal is to fully encase your rose plants in damp soil to rehydrate and insulate them until they replace the leaves they had begun to form and which you have removed when planting. Water the soil in to firm it in place right from the top of the plant and continue to add soil until the canes remain exposed only an inch or two. They are now set to sit until they have grown enough roots to support the plant, which the increasing top growth will indicate to you. Once they are leafing out, you'll have to get advice from those who live in colder climates as you do. "Winter protection" to those of us who live in Southern California usually means continue watering if it doesn't rain. The cold and preventing the heat and light from the sun from stimulating them to break dormancy is probably going to be enough to prevent them from leafing out too early, I'd imagine. If your soil outside wasn't frozen solid and you had a place where you knew you could bury the entire plant without it sitting in mud and rotting, you could also dig a trench large enough to hold all of the plants a little under the soil level. Use a length of rope at the top and bottom of them to indicate where they are so you don't lose them when the time comes to dig them for planting. Bury the plants fully, leaving a mound over them of soil, firmed in place only enough to prevent it from washing away in rains, but not compacted so it remains too soggy and rots the plants. Leave the loose rope ends sticking out of the soil so they may be brought together over the mound and tied together so when the weather is appropriate, you can easily find where they are and remove them from their holding trench for planting. The soil mustn't get and remain soggy, so decent drainage is required. I've used both methods here in Southern California to hold plants until I wanted to plant them as well as to gently rehydrate dried out bare roots and transplants. It works.

Larry, I mean viruses of mosaic family, usually people just call them RMV(rose mosaic virus), but actually there are more viruses then just RMV. This is quite controvercial topic. Many people especially in warm climates think that these viruses are not a big deal. Many others (I am among them) feel that they affect plants health, hardiness and amounts of bloom. Some data indicate that there is a possibilty of viruses transfer from plant to plant. Again there are differences in opinions on this subject and the actual data are limited. I have nice collection of roses that I want to keep as clean as possible. I am a virologist (not a plant virologist) and I know that viruses in general shouldn't be ignored. Olga

Thank you Alex, for looking in on my pix! Your encouragement is greatly appreciated!..as are your wonderful garden pix..all of them! As for the plumeria pudica, I'm not sure, but is that one that does not drop its leaves in winter? I notice in your picture, it looks quite different, the leaves look darker and "bolder"! You are right about wanting more!.. My other adoptee is a one-branched creature with larger leaves on the top. As I've asked in another post, I was hoping, perhaps next spring, to cut the branch into a cutting and start a new one (the propagation bug bites too); or else maybe I should give it another year to show that it too can blossom (It has never). Thanks again. Does anyone who might have seen my pix submitted on July 12 to the gallery, have an idea of which "named" variety it might look like. I realize it doesn't prove it is; but curious! Thanks Eileen