If you have a long narrow bed, think about removing just some of the oleanders, but not in a rigid 1-2-3-remove/1-2-3-remove formation. It'll be just as boring. Instead, think about how to incorporate some of them in "clumps" of one to three, removing the plants in between. For 40' I'd use two clumps and then landscape around them. If you have mature oleanders plus a fruit tree or two, your other plants will be living in mostly shade. I live in the Oakland hills but frankly, flax doesn't really like being shaded. Lantana will grow in bright shade, no problem. I like a mix of plants. 5' wide to me is pretty wide, many of my beds are extremely narrow! This is a composite shot of two long narrow beds - the first showing the "bones" in 2002 when we started landscaping and the second what it looks like April 2006. Right behind the tall white-variegated tree on the RH side, which is a variegated rhamnus (buckthorn), is a white oleander trained as a standard. I bought it from HDepot for $30 and it blooms more than half the year. I love them as trees because you can grow a lot of stuff in the "low" and "mid-level" height beneath them: Up here the big box garden centers have to compete with some really good nurseries so they try harder with good plant selections and prices. You're in a warmer zone than I am (I'm Sunset zone 17) so maybe bahia or some of the others who live in warmer areas can help more with plants. If I were you I'd concentrate on getting plants with foliage color and shape different than the oleanders. They have wonderful foliage themselves, but anything in excess is overwhelming, no matter how pretty! For instance, something like this Lavatera olba "Aureum" would contrast - about 4' tall and around, chartreuse foliage, bright purple flowers once a year. BTW, this is a nursery plant, not big-box store: Heucheras will live in partial shade and flower prettily once a year too. This is "Roseda": Maybe your zone is warm enough to keep this plant alive - mine wasn't, it's very tender. Strobilanthes "Persian Shield" on the left, spikey leaves of bearded iris (love their foliage and cool blue-green color, plus mine reflower twice a year) in-between, and a colorful hybrid pelargonium "Skies of Italy" on the right. The pelargoniums are often called geraniums by people, but that is botanically incorrect. See what I mean about shape and color of leaves? There's not a flower in sight but it's just as pretty. BTW, you can pick your lemons easily enough with a fruit-picker. Buy it at any big box garden center. It's a long pole (sometimes breaks down into two halves) with a stiff wire basket. The basket has a few raised "tines" on one half so you can slide it around the fruit, catch it between the tines, and tug it loose into the basket. Works very well. I'm surprised you get so little fruit from your Meyer. They are a heavy-bearing, vigorous hybrid that naturally grows as a bush. If you have a tree it has been grafted. I have one bush and two trees. This tree was planted in 2002 from a 5-gallon can, and the photo was taken in 2006: Citrus are very heavy feeders. I go through one of those big bags of citrus fertilizer annually with 3 lemons and 1 lime. I'm also a proponent of tossing what doesn't work, so regardless of what your mystery fruit is, I'd yank it out and toss it in the greens cart for something more productive!

Beachplants, Hi, I am so glad to finally be getting a hold of other members of the oleander society!!! I live in Arizona and it is impossible to get any named oleander. I am trying to upgrade my collection. I got to talk to Jim in Connecticut and received a wealth of knowledge! I'm looking for cuttings to buy but now is the wrong time of the year. I hope to be able to make it this spring to the oleander festival if I can get my husband to do it. Thank you for getting back to me. I have tried so heard to get my gardening friends here to get growing names oleander. It's always nice to give someone a lovely tree. Doubles are my favorites but the old oleander are so interesting too. Regards, Mickey Perreaud Cave Creek Arizona

I cut a neighbor's (with permission) that had been raggy and torn up from hard winters over the years to 12" above the soil line. They hadn't done more than a few, pathetic flowers in years when I did it. The following spring WOW! They looked so much better. They bloomed like crazy and the leaves were pretty again. I'd cut them short, they grow fast with established roots. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised at the results.

perhaps ... after 20 years.. it might be wise.. to change the soil completely out of the pot.. and start a new plant.. with some new media ... and if you did that.. out go the roots.. problem solved ... ken