Karinl, I find your photos of espalier to be inspiring. They're a testament to show possibilities! The idea that plants should only be used to do what they do "naturally" (in one person's opinion) I think is absurd. The reason that a given plant can appear so different from one instance to the next is that they--naturally--are masters at adaptation. In nature, plants are pruned all the time...by wind, freezing, lightning and even the efforts of some animals. In landscaping, adorning our square houses and yards (neither of which are 'natural'!) we ask plants to perform functions. There's no reason to think that plants, themselves, care...or that they have the capacity of doing so. Science has determined that unlike fish, they have neither nerves, brains or emotions. They are truly the life form that can suffer any "abuse" without pain or emotion...like a rock. While there's nothing to stop a person from thinking otherwise, logic will not support their conclusions. While plants are NOT like people in that they "think" or "care"...they are like us in that they have "personality," "behavior" and "abilities". These qualities have nothing whatsoever to do with their "emotions" or "intellect." They're simply the product of a given genetics and growth. Some think that these abilities are only worthwhile when allowed to develop unhindered by the hand of man. Others think that the it takes the hand of man to guide and develop the abilities into their most useful form. (It is this same argument that is prominently featured as the basis of the TV show "Wife Swap." One wife likes her children, husband and self to be natural and unguided. The other likes everything around her to be rigidly and exactingly organized. I think most of us expect to live a life somewhere in the grey area between these extremes.) When external forces try to re-shape the lives of people, they balk. Plants just go with it. There could be nothing better for people to be shaping into whatever form they conceive of.

My hands. I can get most weeds up with a quick pull. Those tap-rooted weeds are tougher, of course - *#@! dandelions. Best time to get the dandelions is after a good soaking rain or deep watering. I normally take a narrow trowel and dig straight down next to the crown, then gently wiggle the root straight up and out with my hand - normally will pull out fairly easily if the ground is really moist. I also have the Weed Queen (or is it Weed Hound) thingie for dandelions, which works better in the lawn - stick it straight down over the crown, give it a twist, and the dandelion should come out. For sidewalk/cement crevices, I like that pavement weeder thingie, but again - I try to use it after a good rain, the weeds will slide/scrape out much more easily.

Ezzirah, Be careful about trusting average last frost dates. (This is where personal experience in your location, or lack of it, comes into play and you find yourself trying to guess what the weather is going to do.) And, even if you have successfully gardened in your location for 5 or 6 years or longer, the weather still can fool you. My average last frost date is March 27th. Prior to 2006, I routinely transplanted my tomato plants into the ground beginning as early as the first week in March, knowing I'd have to cover them up about one cold night a week until the cold weather passed, and I seldom had to cover up the plants more than once or twice in April. So, essentially, my last frost date seemed pretty accurate and "was working" for me. Then, something in our regional climate changed. Since 2006 we have had later and later and later cold nights. We've had snow in March around my so-called "average last frost date", snow in April well past our average last frost date, and our last frost has come the first week in May (consistently on May 3rd or 4th) for the last three years. In 2006 or 2007 I planted a week later than my last frost date only to have a prolonged cold spell including sleet and snow hit well after I had all my tomato plants in the ground. When I saw the forecast deteriorating, I knew I had to do something and do it fast or lose over 100 tomato plants, which by then were between 10-20" tall and some even had blooms. I ran to the store and bought 2 or 3 large rolls of heavy 6mm clear plastic and several rows of duct tape. First, I filled every 5-gallon bucket, 3-gallon bucket, 2-liter bottle and gallon jug I had with water to serve as solar collectors. Then I got busy building temporary hoop houses over 7 rows of tomato plants, using the tomato cages as the support for the plastic and using duct tape to close up the ends of the plastic to keep out wind. I also used U-shaped metal ground staples (normally used to hold down fabric mulch) to ensure the ends of the plastic would stay down on the ground and not blow up into the air. It looked like I was covering up furniture in preparation for painting an interior room in the house. It literally took me from sunrise on the first day until after sunset on the second day, but I did it in a desperate race to cover up the plants before the cold front hit. I also piled up mulch all around the plants but not on top of them which would have caused disease issues. My poor plants then sat there under those 'temporary' hoop houses for 3 weeks until the cold air, rain, sleet and snow had passed. It was horrible. I don't think I lost many plants, but I had to monitor them carefully because it is easy to get diseases on plants grown under plastic since the plastic restricts air flow and I also had created artificially high humidity with the solar collectors full of water under the plastic. Sometimes, if we had an almost-warm day with lots of sunlight (mostly it stayed cloudy during that cold spell), I had to cut open the ends of the temporary hoop houses to vent out the much-too-hot air during the afternoon, and then retape them before sunset. Covering the plants with plastic alone wouldn't have kept them warm enough during that time because some of the nighttime lows were in the 20s, but with the solar collectors catching heat all day and releasing it at night, the plants survived. If I had to do all that again, would I? Maybe, but I've tried to avoid having to go to those lengths by planting later and later every year. Even with later planting, I still get slammed with the hard frost in the first week of May. After 3 years of that, though, I have accepted it as "the new normal" and keep floating row cover/frost blanket type material, heavy-duty plastic, bedsheets, bedspreads, tarps and old sleeping bags handy so I can cover up everything during our "surprise late freeze" the first week in May. Remember, my average last frost date is March 27th. And the issue isn't solely that I am in a lower-lying area than much of the rest of the county (although I am) because from 1999-2005 the average last frost date seemed to be accurate even in our low-lying area. You can't even necessarily rely on short-term forecasts. I think it was in 2007 (could have been 2008, as the years run together after a while) that I left my plants uncovered the first week in May because our overnight low was supposed to be 50 degrees. It had been 50 degrees pretty much every night for a week, so I had no reason to think the forecast was incorrect...but it was. Instead of dropping to 50 degrees, our overnight low dropped to 32 degrees and almost all my tomato plants suffered freeze damage. Some froze back to the ground, while others only had scattered damage. Only one row---the row of black tomatoes (Black Krim, True Black Brandywine and Black Cherry) that sat at the highest point of my sloping garden--survived unscathed. I thought my 50-degree-forecast-that-gave-me-32-degrees instead was a fluke that never would happen again, but then the same thing happened to George in either 2008 or 2009. Luckily, it happened right before our annual spring plant swap so some folks (I think Carol was one) who had raised tomato plants like his Baker Family Heirloom from seed he sent them were able to bring plants to the swap for him to replace what he'd lost to the freeze. So, I suggest you take all "average" dates and recommended planting dates with a grain of salt. Something has seriously changed in our local climate during the last half of the first decade of the 2000s, and we're still operating with 'averages' computed using data from the 1970s, 80s and 90s. Even after you plant, you have to watch the forecast very carefully and some of us have learned we can't even trust a forecast low of 50 degrees. It pays to always have material on hand to cover up plants when there is even a slight chance of the forecast being horribly wrong. Dawn

Syb, The last time I was in Santa Barbara, I visited a garden shop that sounded much like what you described: "unique & antique artifacts, local craftsmen items, and combine that with plant offerings, pots, bird & bee houses, water gardens." Nice unusual specimen plants in unique pots outdoors, and lots of handmade and salvaged big garden furniture, fountains, and ornaments inside. It did not have a wildlife/organic focus or a big demo garden, though, or if it did I missed it. It's called Eye of Day, located next to a hotel in Carpinteria. I think the best part of it was the one-of-a-kind benches and other furniture created from interesting blocks of wood and stone -- very sculptural. But to have a store like that, you need enough customers that can afford it, so SB was a good location. Or you can host lots of workshops and get a lot of traffic and some income that way -- a reason for people to go out of their way to visit you, if you are out of the way, and as long as they are there they will browse and maybe buy. Search terms that may help find more of these are "garden boutique" and "garden gallery." Here in the SF bay area, I don't know of anything similar, but we do have quite a few artists who incorporate their artwork into gardens, for example -- * http://www.conversations.org/cevan.htm * Marcia Donohue in Berkeley * a garden sculpture gallery * an artifact/recycle warehouse focusing on garden art -- and also some nurseries that have wonderful display gardens and events -- * Annie's Annuals -- and there is a store called Wild Bird that focuses on attracting birds. -- and at least one of the local landscape designers who focuses on native plants also puts artwork into the gardens that features native-plant themes (urns decorated with mosaics picturing wildflowers, benches made from massive manzanita trunks, fountains in the shape of acorns, etc): Middlebrook Gardens. -- and some independent nurseries feature sculpture and hand-crafted items. So maybe it would be useful for you to go through the process of writing a business plan, or at least the part that defines the competition and what you would offer that is unique or compelling. (My fantasy business would feature a bookstore of used and new garden books, a compost demonstration area, a huge demonstration garden featuring natives, edibles, and herbs, and regular workshops in organic gardening, vegan cooking, botanical medicine, ecological design, and individual plants [would anyone else be interested in an hour seminar on kale?].)