For Bobbi, with smiles

I don't encourage the miniature roses. I hack at them every two years or so with a pruner and ignore them the rest of the time. I've even transplanted them a couple of times (one at least three times) and broke one in half while shipping it to the house. Half lived, half died, it's the puny one next to Frankenrose -- but very pretty flowers. I'll have to get a pic tomorrow. They survive on whatever rain comes off of the eaves during our two or three days of rainy season and whatever dew condenses on the roof and then condescends to fall on them.

What can I say? If I baby something, hover over it, worry about it, read everything in the plant books and follow directions to the T, that plant is sure to die. If the plant survives the first season of being completely neglected, it often responds by going utterly, completely, and gloriously mad. This doesn't bode well for the citrus, of course, but the avocado is doing very well after its near-death experience.

I'll have to get a picture of the weed-tree and post it. They're common in the desert -- well, if they can thrive and even become nuisancy with the neglect and contempt I show them, they're a sure-fire landscaping item up here. I think they might be Chinese Elm and according to a couple of online sources they are highly invasive. Great. Definitely time for arboricidal treatments and I will most certainly have to remove edibles from the area. Fortunately that just means a couple of grape vines and a strawberry patch.

Btw, Bobbi, if holding a knit-together in my front yard is what will get you to travel, I will have it bare as Daddy Warbuck's pate by next week. However, I do know that you hate heights and getting here would put you through way too much, so I won't hold you to it. I just reserve the right to tease a very little bit.