Kelly/Pug: The E.millii in the pic is a hand me down from my mom. I received it about 3 years ago. It was getting too big for her to move it around and too tall for most of her sunny spots in her house. She gave me a cutting which I have grown to about 18 inches and also coaxed it into branching. It is also known as Crown of Thorns or Christ Rose. Some believe this is what could of been used as the "Crown of thorns". This plant is native to Madagascar as was imported to the Middle East a very long time ago. They thrive in Thailand and many hybrids have been developed there. Some of the hybrids have more flower than leaves. The flowers are truly cyanthia and are a little tacky/sticky(I do not know what purpose in nature, maybe help in pollination). I have 19 varieties at this time. The first one is a group photo. Hard to see the details. The other 3 are my newest COT additions. One of the actually has reddish green leaves. And E.millii siegfriedii which is one of my older cot that has leaves which are completely red on the bottom and green on the top of the leave. My large one is most likely a E.millii splendens. Denise from Omaha grows a lot of these as well and I am pretty sure has a blog setup where she mentions these plants. Out of Africa is a good place to find some of the cot varieties. I am currently on the look out for a variegated COT. There is a cultivar named 'Fireworks' which is currently for sale on ebay that I may pick up. I think I will start a mini lemon tree too. When i go south for vacation the end of next month I will be sure to pick up something that I do not see around here often. All this talk is making me want to visit a nursery. Also one of my favorite plants Dorstenia Lavrani. Their is a male and a female form. The female form with age looks similar to a mini grove of palms. This plant is super easy to grow and care for. The flowers look like mini stars that explode to eject their seeds. -David

I second the Portland Nursery recommendation -- very helpful and knowledgeable staff and one of my favorite places to go. I'm beginning to know the staff by name :) You shouldnÂt have any trouble tracking down a good magnolia  theyÂre fairly common here and I saw them at lots of nurseries last spring. YouÂre right, theyÂre a really delight in the spring. You might want to do a web search to see if there are varieties that you especially like. There are several to pick from. And speaking of lots to pick from: For more options on the Japanese maple, if you're not against traveling a few more miles, head across the Columbia just north of Vancouver, WA and go to Pollock and Sons. They specialize in Japanese maples and have many, many varieties to choose from. The staff is very friendly and helpful and helped me track down just what I needed and wanted. They're at 7901 NE 179th -- if you take I5, take the exit for 179th/Battle Ground and head east. If I remember correctly, they're less than 5 miles out, and it's very easy to find and get to. Also, do a search or post a question on the Japanese maple forum and you'll get long lists of people's favorites! Some Japanese maples don't take full sun well, so if that's what you have, keep that in mind when you're looking for a variety. We planted 'Osakazuki' last spring in a full sun location; the first summer they can get a little leaf burn but ours has done really well. Great fall color, too (see the link). If you have shade or part shade that won't be such a problem but make sure the tree you get will fit your location. "Japanese Maples" by J.D. Vertrees is a good reference, too, if you want to look at it at PowellÂs or somewhere. Have fun! Lots of choices  enjoy discovering just the right ones! Here is a link that might be useful:

We love our Scherrs cabinets. They are the first group in the photo gallery on Scherr's site. Here's a picture: They were worth every penny, IMHO. Scherr's did some really complex stuff for us and it all came together well. They made clipped, fluted corners and 5/4 drawer fronts I wanted that they had never tried before. They made integrated raised end panels which was a first for them as well. As for service, I had a problem with a long drawer front that warped (it was solid wood) and they sent out a replacement very quickly (at no cost of course). The cabinets fit together tightly and are very sturdy. You need a good set of bar clamps to properly put them together. The raised panel door fronts are very solidly made and don't rattle at all because they use rubber spaceballs to hold the panels tightly in place. Leon and his brother are very quality conscious and really want to please the customer, in my experience. They started out as custom cabinetmakers. Like many small shops, they built the cases and bought the doors from large national companies like Conestoga. The reason they got into the door business in the first place was because they couldn't find good enough quality doors from the national companies for the custom cabinets they were building for customers. They then became a major source for high quality doors for other custom cabinetmakers and finally branched out into manufacturing the cases again. Kinda full circle. I asked Leon about plywood sides and he told me that it wasn't worth the extra money, even though he stood to benefit if we opted for it. The melamine boxes have been very durable. The melamine sink cabinet didn't suffer any damage whatsoever even though I had water under there for weeks from couple of slow leaks from a faulty filter that would have damaged your typical wood cabinet. I ran a bead of silicone caulk around the corners of the base to seal it when I assembled it and as a result the cabinet looks brand new despite the floods. Their cabinets are of better quality than almost anything I have seen elsewhere. I also have some IKEA cabinets in other rooms of our house. We installed IKEA at my son's house since it is his starter home and the IKEAs were the cheapest plus they fit the space well. I like IKEA and their quality is very good, but not as good as Scherr's. The box on the Scherr's cabinet is more sturdy and fits together more tightly. IKEA also has a limited number of styles and doesn't have all the sizes some cabinet companies have. For instance, I needed 36" tall cabinets and they didn't have them. I also needed other widths they didn't carry. With Scherr's I saved a few thousand bucks over the up-scale semi-custom I was considering at first. And of the 22 cabinets in our kitchen, only 6 are stock sizes. Everything was made to exactly fit and waste not a square inch. However, if you can limit yourself the the IKEA sizes, they are a wonderful cabinet also and I have no complaints with mine. Matching Scherr's doors to their boxes might be a good way to save some money and still get the look you want. Plus you could have Scherr's make any special cabinets you need.

Saw a funny old circa 1960 promo video on TCM for Hollywood. Leads me to believe it is that area's man-made flora if you will that is most intriguing, at least to the novice, which I most decidedly am when it comes to the plantlife of SoCal. All the big crazy yuccas and whatnot, numerous succulent genera, the liberal use of groundcovers, the palms of course, the mostly non-indigenous conifers, all led to what was-in this video of some decades back-a most beautiful and interesting effect. It may be that just as the Great plains prairie (where it still exists) almost could be said to take practice to learn to appreciate, so too with the native scrub of the S. Cal. region. That can surely happen. But for instant gratification, this unintentionally humorous old bit of film was chock-full of horticultural eye candy.