Sounds like you've caught the bug like the rest of us Clancy.I like Beni Maiko and all the spring red types,they really are as bright as any fruit blossoms in spring and last a lot longer.With a garden only 12ft wide and 60 cultivars I really can't fit any more in...ha ha who am I trying to kid,I've just ordered 4 more,also small...don't know where I'll squeeze them in but they are rare in UK(that's my excuse),I have to be really selective now or get rid of some :( There is still one maple I've been after for ages so if you don't mind passing on that info,either here or by PM I'd be very grateful......worth a try! Enjoy your new maples Clancy...and remember,there's not many things that can give increasing enjoyment,hopefully for the rest of your life:)

I’m gonna hijack this further—as I go on a rant about the changes in genus/species names! The guys in the suits sitting in offices need to keep their hands off of The Names and get them out in the dirt where they might actually accomplish something! The chaos created by their constantly changing the names is absolute insanity when you’re working in the industry and trying to figure out what other people are talking about, and sometimes even trying to understand what YOU’RE talking about! One of my Pet Peeves is Wooly Thyme! Has switched back and forth from Thymus lanuginosus to/from T. pseudolanuginosus so many times it makes your head spin. Apparently the guys in the suits can’t figure out if it’s “pseudo” or not! Also goes by T. praecox ‘Pseudolanuginosus’, turning a “species” into a variety name, and also goes by T. praecox pseudolanuginosus, giving it TWO species names! Several years back when I was posting something here, trying to be as accurate as I could, I emailed the owner of perennials.com (and publisher of Heritage Perennial Gardening Guide, a good reference book) to ask if he could help with the “most recent” genus/species, and even he wasn’t sure what the (then) proper nomenclature was! Who knows what it’s called right now! And “all things pertaining to the genus Chrysanthemum!” What a mess! When I was a kid, painted daisies were Pyrethrum. In the Modern Age they wobble back and forth from Tanacetum coccineum to Chrysanthemum c. Call a painted daisy a Chrysanthemum and nobody wants it! They want painted daisies, not mums! Same thing with Shasta daisies! Forever I knew it as Leucanthemum maximum, sometimes Leucanthemum x superbum, but at least still a Leucanthemum! Then the Suits changed IT to Chrysanthemum—pick a species, maximum or superbum—who knows! Customers wanted Shasta daisies, NOT mums! That name also continued to switch back and forth, and since the sales benches were set up alphabetically by botanical name, I could never find them and was always on the radio going: Can anybody tell me what’s Latin for Shasta daisies these days? And a favorite of mine—also a “Chrysanthemum”—they now say! The late-blooming, butterfly-loving ‘Hillside Pink Sheffield’ (tho nobody can figure out in exactly what order the words in the variety name should be!) that I’m always giving away at the swaps. Forever it was Dendranthemum (a/k/a Dendranthema) grandiflorum, but then the suits decided IT was a “mum” too! Just Chrysanthemum, with NO species—and the mixed up variety name! When I post about that one I always add that it “used to be” Dendranthemum so people won’t think it’s a “mum!” And another real pet peeve of mine is hardy pampas grass, which was changed from Erianthus ravennae to Saccharum ravennae! Those two names are still used interchangeably online! Now that really helped to “straighten out” what it is, didn’t it!?! And to make it even worse with that particular grass, people already confuse it with “true” pampas grass (Cortaderia), so now you have folks who don’t know there’s a “hardy” and a “not-so-hardy” pampas grass and they wind up with three completely different names and don’t know what they should be buying. The upright sedum I mentioned on your one thread, they really messed up when they “simply” removed the species—spectabile—all together, renaming them with just “Sedum” and the variety name! Since there are SO many kinds of sedums, just a variety name doesn’t tell you ANYTHING about the plant! We always say, please use botanical names so we know what you’re talking about! Yeah, like that always helps!!! The Suits really need to get a hobby! BUT, all of that still doesn’t explain why the exact same genus AND species of a plant would/could be two entirely different things—and I still don’t think they are. There MUST be some mix-up in the labeling, or name somehow! End of rant! I concede! Sorry ‘bout that! You may have your thread back, Julia! Skybird P.S. Zach, I don’t usually find that USDA plant database very useful—except sometimes to use the maps to see where something grows.

First, Beware fast growers! Most loropetalums get to large for that space. I see maybe one taller upright shrub closer to the entrance and then lower, more spreading things to fill the rest of the bed. Like maybe a 'Yuletide' or 'Leslie Ann' camellia for the upright spot. Lower things: Indian hawthorn, Gardenia, Some of the Encore or Bloom-a-thon Azaleas (with lots of water) Boxwood hybrids (really, they are NOT slow growers!), Eleagnus 'Giltedge' or 'Eleodor' (Will require shearing) Distylium myricoides, 'Vintage Jade' or 'Blue Cascade' Abelia (many, many cultivars) Daphne odora (if you have good drainage) Nandina (dwarf FirePower or other dwarfs) Osmanthus x burkwoodii (keep sheared), O. heterophyllus variegatus or 'Goshiki', 'Rotundifolius' if you can find it (rare). Pittosporum (if it's hardy for you) Ternstroemia (look for dwarf varieties) Ilex Meserve hybrids such as Blue Princess/Prince, Ilex Dwarf Burford, Ilex 'Carissa', Ilex crenata 'Hoogendorn', 'Helleri', 'Soft Touch'. Viburnum tinus, Viburnum 'Moonlit Lace' if adaptable to your heat. Viburnum x 'Conoy' Or make a xeric bed with Agave ovatifolia or parryi, Delosperma, Sedums, Hesperaloe, etc, and fill with crushed rock or pebbles - very low maintenance.

I discovered by accident that if I press and hold on a photo in my ipad photo library, it will remove the background. It doesn’t work well on some photos if the background is too similar to the subject in color tone. It gets saved as a new photo by selecting ‘share’ and ‘save image’. I have a drawing app (Adobe Fresco) that allows me to layer and resize photos on top of each other. I love all those saturated colors in your last post. If you find a pink chair, I’ll add it to the mock-up.