Oh, well......you guys are just weird!

No tomato and cheese sandwich with Miracle Whip? Wow...

I like mayo but not miracle whip. And I love mustard. When I was very young I would get the bottle of mustard out of the refrigerator and suck on it. I got in a lot of trouble for that. I love mustard, I like the fancy kinds but mostly just the plain old mustard.

I am so tired, I am looking forward to winter and weeks of rain. Of course, when that happens, I will complain.

I had a woman drive up at dinner last night. She was looking for some hydrangeas and do I have any? Did she ever come the the right place, I have hundreds. She is coming back today. I am hoping she will buy LOTS. They keep wanting bigger and bigger pots and taking up more and more room. I have to get over the addiction to fuchsia and hydrangea, they are not big sellers, but I love them so much.

The condo will be completed in 10 days or so and he will be coming for plants. Its a difficult area, deer, wind, horrible soil and the plants need to look good year round because this one is not sold and needs to show well. The one I did next door to it looks great, problem is this one will look pretty much the same as the plants that work there are so limited. Lots of heather and evergreen grasses, some australian stuff, grevillea and leptospermum. The other 2 condos there that sold look crappy as the plants did not do well. Thats why I got this new job.....

Off to accomplish something...I hope.

I woke up at 4 A.M. and remembered what Miracle Whip was... I was confused it with Kool Whip. Both are disgusting to me!

I love brown mustards with the little seeds in them. Becca, I adore fuchsia and hydrangea. We can buy them at the nursery here but they very rarely last come the heat. However, I care for my neighbor's garden when she's away and she has a nice hydrangea in a redwood planter that's doing well. Coming from Northern California it's difficult to continue life with my two favorites. Oh, yes, my all time fave is Daphne. Do you go it?

I tried daphne odora again a couple of years ago, this time in a large pot, and still lost it. Don't know that I'll try it again. Same with brown boronia...I had it two years in pots and then somehow it was behind some other stuff and didn't get watered and I lost those. Still.....I won't go out of my way to go look for them, but if I happen to stumble on them......

My grandmother had a very contemporary home. Windows in many rooms were floor to ceiling with the screened opening being at ground level and each about 30 inches tall (fixed windows were to ceiling).... she had daphne planted at all of those (many) windows. In the morning the fragrance would fill the rooms. Loved it!

Daphne. Does not like summer water. It seems like a rhody so you have a tendency to water it, but they will die if overwatered in summer. I have killed many in pots. But I never give up. This last year I got one called Eternal Fragrance. It is not an odora, it has done beautifully in pots,even over winter, actually thrived and flowers almost year round. Give that one a try if you have trouble with them. Not only lives but flowers a lot more, a good thing as Martha would say...lol.

Brown Boronia. Why did you have to mention that? I have killed it twice at least. And mine was from overwatering. But I have learned the brown one is hard to grow. I have the yellow flowered one and its thriving. Not as fragrant and not as pretty but ALIVE. I am done with the brown but will try again some of the pinks.

I have the most exotic fuchsias, some are 10 feet tall with long, huge flowers. I have been putting my "mothers" in 5 gallon pots. The smaller ones I will have to toss this winter. Cannot have the whole area full of huge fuchsias. I will keep and do cuttings on the mothers. I hope the hydrangea woman is also a fuchsia person, seems the 2 often go together then I can make a sale on both. If she is not. perhaps I can influence her....

Since someone had asked about fuchsia recently on GW, I checked into the...mostly because I had to keep myself from being tempted by Pedrick's Corner's shrub fuchsias. Apparently the main problem with them has been the fuchsia gall and there are resistant varieties now. Is that a problem up there, bex? My great aunt grew fuchsias, the hanging ones. they were everywhere..that and parakeets. Her two loves, that's mainly what I remember of her.

I am a great fan of floor to ceiling windows...they have a grace lacking in half wall windows, though each has their place. If we do another house, it will have floor to ceiling windows.

There are many resistant varieties. I am surprised you do not have the bolivian fuchsia, it awesome and in your climate, most likely evergreen. They will get 14 feet tall with nice bark on trunks, and no gall mites. Mostly for resistive ones, look for the triphylla. They are the ones I like as I love the single long and elegant flowers. Watch out for the doubles, they are more likely to get the gall mite. Fuschia Fanfare is awesome, huge flowers and beautiful foliage. Here is a bunch of pictures of the flowers common on triphylla.
http://www.google.cz/search?q=...

These are the flowers I like. Also check out fuchsia speciosia. An awesome one and very easy. Again in your climate, probably evergreen, dies back here but comes back beautifully. This is a wholesale place that I have shopped at, they fed my addiction real well. There is a picture of speciosia there.

http://xeraplants.com/Xera/Fuc...

You should not have asked about fuchsias, come on, you knew better.

Yeah, well I just found Bolivian Sunflower this week also....I would have to do it in tubs here...rabbits, but.....
About a year ago we added on a roof overhang 'porch' on the south side and spread gravel. I mentioned to Jer that I liked the 'clean sweep' instead of my usual clutter of plants and thought I'd keep it that way....

Annie's carries lots of mite resistant ones Sherry!
http://www.anniesannuals.com/p...

Apparently I can't avoid being a cluttered gardener.....this is what it looks like this a..m....lol..

Oh, Sue...I sure am glad that you didn't mention that to me two weeks ago before my friend was going to Annie's and brought plants back for me...lol. I'm still moving into large pots the ones that she brought me, to wait for planting in the Fall...and I've just thought of a bottomless half barrel that I can move and use for the Bolivian Sunflowers. Apparently they have some growing n tubs in front of some of the shops in town.....they grow from cuttings...hmmmm.

Well I had to go check out those Bolivian Sunflowers, you sure those can go into a large pot?
http://davesgarden.com/guides/...

Wow...cool. I have not taken a good look at the ones in town. My friend who loves all the same plants that I do has been coming home to their house here once a week lately and she mentioned them. Said they're in large pots. One street in town has tubs of stuff, I need to go take a look...(and maybe take my clippers, sssh.) If I get a hold of some, they're going in a whiskey barrel. I have one barrel left and though the bottom is probably gone by now, it would still be serviceable to raise stuff up a bit from the rabbits and cover with wire, until they're large enough (apparently very quickly) to not be tasty to the rabbits. I need some more half barrels and some more 15 gal pots...wish it were my birthday or Christmas....sigh.

I've just been moving some of the stuff in large clay pots and some of these I stuck seeds in....seeds maybe 2-3-4 years old, not expecting much and not bothering to label...pots sitting in full sun.... and zowie....these seeds are up in like 3 days. Sure will be interesting to see what they are....lol. I think I may plant my fresh seeds in these same pots rather than sowing in flats in shade. The results are amazing. Of course, it may just be certain seeds, but it sure is a more carefree way to go. It's interesting to find what will happen when we really don't care much what the outcome is. Things work better than we would expect...

Sherry, I love your garden either way. Clutter or clean sweep, it all looks healthy! I can see what you mean about not being able to go away during summer, too much watering

Sometimes we just need to accept who we are and much as I try to keep things in order... everything becomes like a rubberband .... it's wants to take the shape it was meant to take.

Thank you. I like it, but when others are here, I kinda cringe....like it should be neat and tidy, manicured..lol. I have accepted that I am just not an orderly person. Yeah, the watering is too much...too much work, too much cost. We would really like to take a run up the coast and can't...and then, by October when we used to enjoy going, now we worry about the fires, so....things will have to change.

I do see a couple of places where I could squeeze in the shrub fuchsias...lol..I'm also finding that I really like having that type of thing in big pots, too. You can group things together that would look odd planted together in the ground.

I was just e-mailing with my friend who was up at Annie's a couple of weeks ago and Annie's has the Bolivian Sunflowers available online! We wish that Nancy had seen them when she was there, but we didn't even know we wanted them until this week..lol...now we want them BAD. Also just found that the cheapo nursery where I got my kangaroo Paws for $3 a gallon a couple of years ago has them for $4....still a great price. I may have to go get some more...sigh. I love my orange and yellow ones and seeing them out my kitchen window. They stay in flower sooo long.

Sherry, I love your gardens - they always strike me as lush & peaceful. Definitely not messy!

Rebecca, I got started with fuchsia a couple of years ago... first one from Annie's (because I read it was mite resistant), then 4 or 5 from Pedrick's corner. They're all big bushes now, at least 4 feet, and something I would love to collect more of... if I didn't have deer in the front & mostly sun in the back. In, the little bit of backyard that gets morning sun only, I've planted hydrangea & hosta.

I'm going to have to investigate the bolivian fuchsia - stunning! I notice that CA Sue contributed several pics to the DG database. Sue, did you leave this at your old house or can you grow this in a pot?

I get a gold star..I just got back from shopping and managed to pass 'the' nursery twice and talk myself out of stopping for more Kangaroo Paws. I may go there tomorrow though...I also want stipa gigantea and if he happens to have any, he'll be cheaper than anyone else.

My friend has 2 15 gal pots that I can have, so that makes 7 for putting my blackberries in. Planted a couple of things in the area and soaked it so the berries will be easier to dig...have to do that tonight.

Tomorrow is Donna's (SoCal) memorial service and Marie (desertdenial) is driving in from AZ...should be at weege's today and I've got a bunch of plants to send back to Az with her, so need to sort those out, etc.

You guys need to stop talking about fuchsias...I feel the 'need' growing.....

I had to quell that growing need by ordering 10 of them from Pedrick's Corner just a few minutes ago.