I've had those thoughts lately...someone asking how to do this or that and deciding that they need to do it on their own...online info, books, start small...get away from me.......some people like to do things together like that...I don't. I have plants I will gladly give them, but they need to figure out what to do with them....mostly on their own.
I'm mostly okay with being a curmudgeon hermit.....LOL...

Carol, by next year you will have forgotten all about it, the protea will be dead ( she won't read the part about phosphate) and she'll find out that peonies are impossible here (from a local nursery). Everything will be just fine.

I figure that by this weekend she will forget about pulling the weeds too. I did give her some sources for research. If she is interested enough, she can study before making her next useless/ expensive purchase. Proteas are impossible here too, unless you can give them RO or rain water. I did study!

I rejected any thought of proteas when I found out about the fertilizer deal. NObody gets that kind of special treatment around here. Mostly because I'll forget and the thing will die no matter what.

A lot of proteas grown around Fallbrook...I somehow never felt the urge....

That area is pretty similar to their native habitat. Ours isn't even close.

Well, my neighbor did get her boyfriend to come and help her weed! They got all the big stuff ( pigweed /solanum) but thought the spurge and purslane were ground cover. They're leaving those and some of the barnyard grass that wasn't as obvious for another day. Her potted protea has gone missing. I explained about letting the weeds go to seed, but doubt it sunk in. If they weren't both such nice kids, I would hide when I saw them coming. LOL!

Why am I not surprised that her protea would be stolen? a lesson for sure....

It was in the back yard too. I don't put anything portable out front ever. Most of the neighbors respect the back yard, even though many will help themselves to anything seen from the street. I have many potted plants on my porch and along/in the driveway, and so far none have ever gone missing, but my front door is usually open and I have lots of windows.

Like the old gypsy woman up the hill from us when we lived in the Bay Area...found her sitting in a chair in my back yard after she'd helped herself to a basket of tomatoes...we put a fence up right away. We seem to find right away after moving into a new place that a fence is needed....

This one is fenced, and there is an old Mercedes in the driveway all day, but the girl is at work all day, so probably someone that knows that.

Linaria purpurea....















Can't wait.....

The linaria is gorgeous!

I like that I've been growing that for YEARS from a couple of plants gotten many, many years ago. I will have lots of seed of that, if you want some....the pink form is 'Canon Went'...it reseeds.

I finally got a salvia leucantha 'Danielle's Dream'! When they first appeared on the scene, everyone wanted it and you couldn't find it anywhere, think it was available first in Oz. It's taken me years, but have one now...friend was down in Eureka and always brings me something and this time it was Danielle...and a regular purple s. leucantha, haven't checked the label yet to see which one...sigh...I used to have BIG stands of this down south, it won't do that well here, will need to be careful on drainage....






and a seedling of Agastache 'Apache'...

Lepechinia hastata....

Pretty! I had to look it up in Sunset. Too big for me, but it does say HARDLY ever browsed by deer. That would be a plus for you.

I have a lot of it...in back and in front and the deer have not touched it. I am having extraordinarily good luck with the deer. The Lepechinia is heavily scented and there's enough wild vegetation around here that I think the deer would prefer...and I occasionally spritz with lavender oil water....they did visit my yard one night last week and the ate a couple off leaves from a small Red Twig Osier seedling, that was all.

Hope your lick lasts!

My, my...what have we here? This has been fun...I was given a bunch of clumps of carex and some of them have other surprises that have self-seeded there...the first one surprised me with a white dierama...now this...






Soon, soon, soon....

Oh, lookee, lookee......

I've been watching this thing that popped up, knew it was something. When I got home this afternoon, it was too late to reaally get started on anything, but went out to water...and there it was! A shrub fuchsia! magellanica?

The things that pop up here just astonish me...this is where I've dug out sod...would it come up from many years ago seed? from long ago in the ground roots? All I know is that the original owner of the house would have been older than me...the house is 60 some years old...and she was Indian, either Yurok or Tolowa...and I know she was a gardener because of the trees that were here that the morons took down when it became a rental property years ago. I think she would be pleased. I also found a Fuchsia magellanica in white form that popped up in the wild brambles on the edge of the property a year ago.