beth - thanks a lot for providing information about the rose. It is helpful to know the size the bush got for you and I am also pleased to hear that it blooms and repeats well. Thank you also very much for posting the two pretty photos. I especially love the first one! They show the rose quite well! The flower shape reminds me a little bit of Angel Face... Anybody else out there who has experience with that rose? I really would like to know, if it is fragrant or even has a strong fragrance.

The 1913 freeze killed most of the citrus in this area. LaVerne, Claremont, Upland along the base of the foothills and Pomona & Ontario in the flatter lands below. Tom Spellman lived in Upland and was the manager of LaVerne Nursery when they were still in LaVerne. He discovered a tree in Pomona that survived the 1913 freeze and propagated it as Pomona Sweet Lemon. Tom Spellman now works for Dave Wilson Nursery, which is why the descriptions from LaVerne and Dave Wilson sound the same. I bought two that were propogated by LaVerne mostly to try to determine if the sweet lemon growing in my backyard was that cultivar. I find them interesting at times and very blah at others. I would NOT buy one thinking you are getting a less tart lemon, as it is way, way less tart. However, Pomona Sweet Lemon mixes well with Eureka & Meyer for Lemonade.

The Victorian style of gardening was dead, dead, dead right around 1900. It survived in public parks and railroad stations but most people had come to dislike it intensely. One of its chief features was the bedding-out of annuals, both flowering and foliage plants. I am now seeing some of these foliage plants, like coleus, so popular in the 1800s, popular again. Huge foliage plants such as cannas were also big with the Victorians and scorned after 1900. William Robinson and Gertrude Jekyll began a revolution in English gardens. They advocated naturalistic planting styles and perennials. They also wrote books. Jekyll designed gardens for the very rich in England, never stirring from her hidden home at Munstead Wood, which I have had the great good fortune to visit. Jekyll was inspired by English cottage gardens but her gardens were planned for the upper class. Her books were very popular and well-to-do Americans bought them with enthusiasm. However, American gardeners soon found that English garden books do not translate very well in our climate. A whole new garden literature, most of it written by women gardeners, arose. These books were, I believe, the largest influence on American gardens from 1900 til WW2. They generally showed naturalistic groups of perennials in geometric beds. Borders were hugely popular, as well as the style described above, so often with a sundial at the center. Sorry for the long post!

D., don't worry about it! I know this is a tough topic to discuss and I know the whole topic of protecting assets from the auction block is often fraught with the presumption of greed, selfishness, and entitlement. I've been reading your posts for some time now and know you aren't unreasonable. Truthfully? my parents wanted us to have the house, but were too ignorant/trusting that they couuld transfer it to us at the very end. You can't do that, any more; you have to PLAN the transfer years in advance or they will be quickly appropriated to fund LTC. Our case is no different from most families. There are liquid assets and there is real estate. We have protected the real estate, and the liquid assets are still largely intact minus a few permitted "gifts". My mother has been with me for 3 years now, at no cost to her. The idea behind our calculated decisions is that there will be sufficient funds to move her into long term care for a few years. Statistically, the person dies within a year/two of entering LTC. This was what the elder law attorney advised. I used to feel sort of "guilty" about the way we've set things up, but now I don't. We've used every legal means at our disposal to preserve some of what my parents stated time and again they wanted to leave to us, but were too ignorant to isolate and protect. And I understand completely that there are plenty of families that "skim the cream" and hustle the infirm family member off to the home and onto the public dole. That bothers me, too. Realistically, though, with the looming SS and Medicare/Medicaid crisis there will no safety net for the likes of me, even though I've paid more in taxes to fund Mum's benefits than she or my father ever paid in to the system. I will do my level best to parlay whatever I'm fortunate enough to inherit into long term, long range investments to buffer my own old age and inevitable infirmity. My 3 years of devoted care for my mother deserve to be compensated, too. Frankly, I'd rather inherit the real estate tax-free than be paid, moved into a higher tax bracket, and have to pay taxes on the earnings every year! I'm willing to wait for my compensation, no nursing home would accept that sort of arrangement.