Well, I'm glad my pics have earned me a Bloody Mary. Thanks Kathy!! GB - Tamarisk would be really nice but those are actually the pinkish flowers of Karl Foerster grass. Marian - the chickens all stay out at night now, but in their covered henhouses. Our lowest temp has been 48F and their feathers and roosting together keep them plenty warm. Their garden could be a real mess by the time Autumn comes, but it was a spot I rarely visited up close. In fact, before the chickens I just let the invasives battle it out and from a distance the effect was pleasing. I now love digging and weeding in there as the chicks follow my every move, dashing off with a worm if I uncover one. It is so much fun:0) Ei - Big Bertha is the white one - she is supposed to grow 1/3 larger than the others but is of modest size right now. In no way are those dumb questions - I asked the very same ones myself. In fact, until this morning I didn't fully understand the anatomy of a rooster and couldn't answer the children's questions as to whether he has a male appendage or not. As the article below explains, roosters are only needed to fertilize eggs to breed. It is interesting that they only mate when daylight and temperature are right, which occurs in Spring. A hen will lay eggs without any help from the rooster, in the same way we have our cycle regardeless of male presence. Knowing our town does not allow roosters I brought our chicks from a local farmer who sexes the day old peeps so that buyers are assured a female. They are a little more expensive but it was a much better alterative than raising a chick only to find we had to give it away when it started crowing. Apparently roosters will crow at any time of the day or night if disturbed. Roosters can be magnificent and if we lived on a farm I'd have one in a second, but would house it away from our bedrooms. Mary Here is a link that might be useful: Reproduction of chooks

Thanks, guys! Old roses are so enriching in so many ways . . . We enjoy their beauty . . . We enjoy meeting the challenges of growing them "just right" . . . We enjoy their history . . . In this case, we enjoy seeing the demonstration of that most characteristic quality of gardeners--their generosity--as the Green Rose was passed across the South . . . and, finally, in looking at a blossom that we know is essentially the very same as what someone a century or two ago looked at, we feel a sense of identity with our predecessors, a sense of a greater stability and continuity beyond the reach of time and time's buffetings and destruction. All this in exchange for a little attention, water, and manure!

I'm glad to read all these reports; they're interesting! Thanks to everyone who's written in. Rosemeadowgardener: I don't recognize any of the weeds you list; are they Australian natives, or exotic: do you know their botanical names? Thank God we don't have one of the worst curses of North America here: no poison ivy, oak, sumac. How interesting to read Marianne's weed list from the other end of the European temperate zone and discover that I have all the nasty weeds she does, and several of the nice ones. Galium aperine is an unpleasant plant, sticky and climbing, but there are a number of other Galium species that grow locally that are rather nice. Sweet woodruff is Galium odoratum. Our native primrose is Primula vulgaris; and we too have anemones, hepaticas, wild geraniums--harebells I think not. Connie speaks of the huge weed population of her property, which is an old farm. We too garden on a former farm and downhill from a current one, and I agree with what her post suggests, that agricultural properties present particular weed problems. Ongoing plowing leaves ground permanently disturbed, given weeds fertile ground to grow; grazing animals can trample ground, and the hay brought in to feed them can bring weed seeds from other areas. The year after the shade garden was flooded with manure from a cattle enclosure above, the weed population there was amazing. And we get great numbers of weeds, some of them highly obnoxious, along the drainage ditches that descend from our neighbors' plowed fields through our own land. Then, if fields and pastures are abandoned, they begin to go to brush, and you get brambles and other colonizing species--Connie's plant list is different from mine, but the process is the same. What the heck is Creeping Charlie? A couple of you have mentioned it. The various posts have covered quite a bit of territory, not only in the literal sense, on the topic of weeds. Paula took up the issue of invasive exotics that push out native species on undomesticated land (as well as the native but obnoxious Poison Oak). This is a problem all over the world, of course. I read in that interesting book 'Ecological Imperialism' about how many plants flourished in Europe along with the development of agriculture and became weeds, then traveled all over the world with European colonizers and established themselves in temperate zones everywhere, often at considerable cost to native species. We too have our exotic invasive species--one standout here in the hills is black locust, Robinia pseudoacacia, originally from North America--but I wonder what the effect has been on our native flora of a few thousand years of tolerably intensive agriculture. Were there species that went extinct because they were useless to humans and occupied land that could be used for farming and other useful activities? Some plant populations exist in part as a result of human activities: we have a rich population of native orchids many of which grow in pasture land and are now threatened because grazing is disappearing and the land is turning to brushland and then to woods. But perhaps three thousand years ago the orchids that grew were those adapted to woodlands? Lavender lass: do you know the species name of your artemisia? We have one ugly native artemisia, A. vulgaris, but a couple of nice ones. Another pleasant weed I remembered is lemon balm, Melissa officinalis--what a fine plant to share a name with. It's too invasive to plant, but grows wild at the edges of beds, is fragrant, and has fresh green leaves that are pretty in spring. I feel better every time I see it. I like mulleins too. We have a woolly species similar to what erasmus describes which makes a fine ornamental; the problem is that it seems to need a somewhat lighter soil than is present in most of our garden; otherwise it's not fussy. Melissa

And your interpretation of my remark is just as subjective. Concrete curbing is unnecessarily limiting in any landscape, as this situation clearly outlines. If one wants to open up to the potential plant choices available, then one surely does not want to be limited by awkward concrete curbing holding one back by artificially defining and unnecessarily restricting the available planting area. Often these concepts are not even considered until it has be pointed out, in much the same way homeowners are inclined to save all plants just because they are already there - the need to retain should be the only justification in maintaining and concrete curbing just doesn't have a justifiable place in the landscape. As to the 'budget' involved in removal of the curbing and/or enlarging the bed, the only cost involved is elbow grease! It is far better to take the time to layout the garden correctly to begin with and prepare the proper planting areas than prematurely spend money on plants that will rapidly outgrow the area or be too large to begin with. That's just money down the drain. That area in the photograph outlined currently with the curbing is simply too small to accommodate much of anything - certainly not a tree, not even most reasonably sized shrubs. Call me blunt or rude or whatever but I see no reason to not to call a spade a spade when it so obviously affects the outcome of the design. Pussyfooting around such glaring obstacles does not benefit anyone, the OP included.