Thank you all so much for your kind comments. I haven't visited the Gallery for a couple of months to see them before today. Kitty, so far canes on my Fawn are horizonal. It's interesting to see how yours has put some height on. How old is it? It's a wonderful rose, isn't it? Probably most of you have read that I'm downzing sizing the garden as to the number of roses grown. I'll have to admit it made me a tiny bit sad to look at the rose photos from this spring as well as see how the roses in the garden are covered with buds again after my cutting the buds off when chilli thrips were found to be stunting their growth. But nothing stays the same. That's the nature of this world. I'll still be gardening -- just less intensely ... maybe :-)

Hi Pinar, I'm also in northern California just north of Santa Rosa. In my previous home, we had a Podocarpus between us and the neighbor and it only gave so-so privacy. We then planted a red oak that was fast growing and had very large leaves, but the squirrels wouldn't stop girdling it and we had to remove the top 30 feet that had died. I'm now in another house in the same town, and have a privacy problem with a two story addition going up next door, so I'm planting two Chinese lace bark elms. We researched for four months looking for the ideal tree, and found and there's no tree that will check all the boxes, but the Chinese lace bark elms came the closest; the only negative for us was the maximum size which can reach 50 feet tall. It's fast growing, tolerates short periods of boggy soil, is drought resistant once established, isn't picky about your type of soil and has few pest issues. I see that you're looking for an evergreen and the Chinese lace bark elm may or may not lose its leaves depending on your climate. There's one in my town that must be 60+ years old and in January it still has most of its leaves. Several of these trees were planted in the Kaiser parking lot in Santa Rosa a few years ago and they quickly grew to provide shade with dense growth of narrow leaves that flutter in the breeze. They're beautiful.

You can rent bicycles at Stow Lake inside GG Park: San Francisco- Golden Gate Park 50 Stow Lake Drive Next to the Boat House San Francisco, CA 94118 (415) 668-6699 (805) 688-0091 And it's too early for tulips, I'm afraid, so don't worry about going to the windmill at the west end of the park. You didn't mention where you are staying in the city. If in the downtown or financial district: You can get a spectacular view of SF and the Bay by going to the Bank of America headquarters in downtown SF, 555 California St. @ Kearny, and having a drink after 3pm at the Bankers Club on the top floor (it's a private club during lunchtime). It shares space with the Carnelian Room restaurant (adequate food but not exciting). Sit facing northeast and the view will literally take your breath away. Big comfortable plush chairs around marble-topped tables. People fight for the tables nearest the windows so it's worth getting there early before 5p. Go only if the weather is clear, however! Rather than staying around at the Carnelian Room for food, there are better, really excellent restaurants around that area for dinner as well (but make reservations WELL in advance, like 2-3 weeks minimum). Boulevard, Slanted Door (Vietnamese), Ame, Jeanty @Jack's, and Aqua all cost $$$ but are fabulous dining experiences. If you are staying in the downtown area and need any recommendations on breakfast or lunch places that won't bust the budget, you can email me. I recently posted some stuff on the "other" gardening forum that we aren't allowed to mention, where they also have a travel/vacation forum and were looking for member recommendations. I'm an exec. assistant who worked in downtown SF for decades, so eating out is not only a passion but was part of my duties to make good recommendations!

Just to remind people that the (almost certainly) irreversible change to charging a fee would get the Arboretum only between 7 and 8% of their budget. It will of course cost something to administer the fee, so perhaps 5% is a more realistic number? Regardless, the presence or absence of the fee is not going to make an enormous difference in the overall health of the park. And I would argue that they could get more than 7 or 8% if they were just a bit more creative. Eric, you say "People are not donating like they used to. Memberships are way down from a few years ago". I believe you have identified the problem, at least in part. The Arboretum is bad at fundraising. This needs to be fixed. I don't know the people involved, but it's clear they are not reaching out to us "plant people" as well as they should. I also strongly suspect they are failing to tap the immense wealth in San Francisco and its suburbs, which I would expect would be their true source of money. Reaching out to "plant people": I suppose there are many ways one could describe Strybing's incredibly low profile. As I mentioned above, many of the big names in the horticultural world are totally unaware of their sales. But this is perhaps even more telling: I've only been to the Conservatory of Flowers (the glasshouse, also in Golden Gate Park) and the UC Botanical Garden a couple times each in the last couple years. However, I just checked: emails from UC Botanical Garden in the last year: 38. From the Conservatory of flowers: 18. From Strybing: 0. (note that I have received a number of personal emails from employees and volunteers at Strybing in response to questions.) Strybing fails to promote itself and I assume to raise money. That needs to be fixed before they make an irreversible step like charging money. Yes, those of us who post on a forum like this will continue to go to Strybing. Those aren't the people we should be concerned with. People like my mom, as I mentioned, will be less likely to go. Strybing is unlikely to ever raise that much money by selling more plants, by the way. $200,000 would be 20,000 $10 plants, even assuming 100% profit, which divided by 10 or 12 sales is close to 2,000 plants per sale...impossible. However they could clearly raise more money by raising their profile a little bit and appealing to all of the wealth in the area. If they start holding events for the rich and they make this place of beauty a center for those people, a good fundraising effort should be able to raise 10% more money. However, if they do run out of money and can't take care of all their plants, I suspect they can save quite a bit of money by neglecting their most abundant one--the grass--which is all over. Let the grass die and go uncut, yet preserve the important plants. The park will become an "eyesore" in the opinion of many, yet they will preserve what counts. I bet the dead overgrown grass would draw attention and that extra 7 or 8% of the budget would quickly appear. There are many creative ways the Arboretum could raise money. The newspaper article said that $10,000 was spent to pay a lobbyist to push for the $7 fee. If they had instead spent the money on a consultant to look at ways to raise the profile of the Arboretum, appeal to the wealth of the area, and raise money, I suspect the need for the fee would vanish.