I think that I DID run the car over the V. opulus - great way to divide the plant! One of mine was a pup off an established shrub that had gotten in the way of a hose bibb and I had someone dig it out and he didn't know what to do with it so he left it sitting off the driveway (on soil) and about six months later when I got around to moving it to the compost pile, it had rooted in! You're dead right about zonal imbalances (like hormonal imbalances?) and no one should be shipping plants around once it warms up. I just explained our planting timing by way of illustration because it is so different than the majority of the country, and even zone 9 doesn't really explain what it's like here because we have so much ocean influence. We run in the high 70's/low 80's in summer with ocean breeze so your'e right, we don't have temps in the 90s unless it is a heat wave. So the best way to describe our weather is 'mild', which really doesn't describe any of the weather in z5,6,7,etc. We'll hope that PF finds the V. o. r. and yes, John, your wife will just love those flowers. They are pretty gorgeous when they first come out and they are that lovely shade of lime green. All this rapture about such a weedy shrub, but isn't it nice that we can find love in all the wrong places?

A diaper pail, Ingrid? That is too funny. Someone else on Gardenweb posted that Gentle Hermione smelled like baby poop. I decided to give that rose a wide berth. Perhaps they are related? Some years ago I went to the Huntington and smelled many of the roses in bloom. I made comments on some that stood out, particularly good or bad. Now I have never smelled, by itself, myrrh, but there were Austins which were described as having that scent and I tended not to like them. I wrote the label "stinks" by these Austins: Mary Rose, Symphony, and Fair Bianca. While I particularly liked the scents of Gertrude Jekyll, Pretty Jessica, Admired Miranda, and The Countryman. Some other roses also received the "stinks" designation: Enfant de France, Katherine Zeimet, and Boule de Niege. Boule de Niege didn't have the same stinkiness as the others however. To me it had the unpleasant aroma of sweaty gym shoes. Such a pretty thing though, and it received so many high praises from others that I thought surely I was mistaken. So I bought it at a Huntington plant sale and brought it home. Grew beautifully in my garden, with lots of leaves and many charming white, moderately-sized flowers. But alas, the stinky gym shoe fragrance is what this plant produced. I learned it was best only to admire from a distance and to avoid taking a whiff. Noxzema as a matchmaker? Who knew! Melissa

I was absolutely infested w/ green stink bugs and only Sevin worked for me. I tried dishsoap and Safer Insecticide (obviously spraying different days, not mixed together) and they swam through it as if it were a wonderful after-shave lotion. It would only stun the babies and never affected bugs who had developed to the later stages. One spray with recommended dosage of Sevin and all are in stink bug heaven now. Being no fan of harsh insecticides, Sevin is good in that, according to the label, it never penetrates the fruit and easily washes off and they say it can be used up to day of harvest. It's been 2 weeks now without another stinkbug reappearance. good luck

Tom, it is understandable to be skeptical but the strange combinations of things is what makes gardens in SE Australia so weird and wonderful. You can see a yard where the main landscaping consists of Betula pendula and Yucca elephantipes, the latter ALSO being one of the most popular northern hemisphere plants in the suburbs! Melbourne in degrees F is only about 6F warmer than England in the summer...on average. Hardly warm by our standards at all. Almost like Portland, Maine: 79F/60F. During heatwaves, however, it can get a lot hotter. And presumable the birches down there have defoliated in the worst summers. And btw the She Oaks are incredibly wispy! The Canberra Australian National Garden has a huge collection of them, but I walked right past it w/o taking any pictures because they all look the same to me. Shax, I'm having to write "in arrears" - so the posts are a few days behind the trip. I might get caught up tonight. I got into Christchurch very late last night. Would love to have seen your place but really had limited time...I do have things to get back to and am having to pay a neighborhood kid to keep my 100+ potted plants taken care of. Thanks for the kind offer though...if supersonic flight ever becomes feasible and cheap, I plan to visit Australia frequently haha. Some Australians have gently ribbed me for complaining about the flight length. They are used to having to fly that long to get anywhere else in the world. It's interesting in speaking to them...so many people here have been to the US. While I doubt more than 5% of people in the US have been to AU or NZ, if that.