a few other choice selections from Glacier's End. Cedrus libani 'Beacon Hill.' Its provenance is questionable. There's a Beacon Hill Park in Victoria, BC which is perhaps where the plant was found. If so, we can also infer that Gordon Bentham was the guy who found it. Puchased from Coenosium Gardens long ago. Sequoia sempervirens 'Mt. Loma Prieta Spike.' A strict weeping Coast Redwood. This is an Buchholz & Buchholz product. Chamaecyparis lawsoniana 'Imbricata Pendula.' Another Buchholz product. This is grafted onto Buchholz's own phytophthora-resistant understock, which explains why I have such a healthy specimen in Western Washington. Yes, there is a tree in there. Here's one of my Picea omorika 'Pendula Bruns.' For now just try to concentrate on the eccentric behavior on the leader. The bald spot in the middle is from some buck rubbing last fall. This fall he goes behind a fence and the hole should be gone in a season or two. ~Dave

Christin, I'm at the upper limits of tropical growing, in the southernmost part of Georgia. If it grows in Tallahassee, FL (north FL) it usually survives here, too. I grow things in the ground here, like Purple Heart, Shrimp Plant and Spider Plant, that my mother used to grow as houseplants in north Georgia. Crinums and Pride of Barbados overwinter here, nipped back by frost to sprout in spring. Reportedly, so will Tibouchina and Heliconia, but I choose to keep them over inside for an early spring start. I learned a lot last winter about what doesn't need to come inside for the winter. Hedychium, for instance, needs to die to the ground. Everybody can use some tropicals ourdoors in summer, as evidenced by books like those by Pam Baggett and Professor Iversen. Nell

We lived in Georgia when I was eight years old. Had a cool creek that ran through the backyard that my friends and I spent lots of time in, catching crawdads and throwing lily pads at each other. The first week of May I got horribly sick with what the docs guessed was an allergy. I couldn't breathe, even though I've never had asthma. My face turned very red and swelled to the point that I couldn't see. My hands swelled so much that they actually cracked and clear liquid ran from the cracks. It lasted for several days and then disappeared as suddenly as it came on. The following year it was back -- again in the first part of May. It was worse the second time and I ended up in the hospital, on oxygen and being pumped full of antihistamines. After asking tons of questions about anything new in my environment, the doctor finally told my mother that he believed I was deathly allergic to something that only bloomed during that time of year. His suggestion, besides documenting everything that I'd recently come into contact with, was to be GONE from the area well before the following May. Needless to say, we moved up North, and there were no more episodes until I went to an Easter Sunday service where the church was filled with blooming LILIES. The uncontrollable coughing started before we were even seated. Within five minutes I was having trouble breathing and freaking out. Mystery solved. I got out of there like my pants were on fire and my butt was catching! Nowadays I don't go to Easter services, or weddings, or funerals. I steer clear of the floral department in garden centers and grocery stores. No more lilies for me. For the record, I don't think I'm allergic to ALL types of lilies, but I have no plans to test that theory.

EK Stone on walls and cabinet fronts, EK Rainbow Fog on trim. Taken with artificial light and perhaps flash, minimal natural light. Looks very different in the daytime - the Rainbow Fog is beautifully creamy in the diffuse north light. The third picture isn't very true to the color but shows what I did to paint a shower surround in the trim color (since it was really just a bath surround). Not shown in these photos, I later painted another surround around the sink, which works very well to hide all the toothpaste splatter. > > >