What a beautiful flower, @gingerw The cacti I have are starting to display their yellow flowers. Soon others which have purple flowers will put on their show. I try to be on the lookout all of the time for weeds in my cacti. I always seem to manage ending up with various size needles in my gloves and arms. I use a wide trowel and a weed digger to get down to the roots, and I usually have a long bbq spatula to help in the process. I have a fair amount of mulch anywhere I've planted cacti, so if I keep a close eye on them, the weed roots will only be in the mulch, making it much easier to pull them out.

I bought my first jade plant when we lived in San Francisco, at Cost Plus, now known as World Market. The original store down by the piers was a lot of fun to spend an afternoon in. It was a maze, with lots of nooks and crannies. That was back in '75. When we moved to Oregon in '82, it went with us. I had that original plant for more than 15 years, and it was the parent and grandparent to many, many little ones. A couple of years ago I donated 4 large jade plants to our church office. They were more than 3 feet tall. I think I over watered the old one, and developed rot, so I had to cut off the viable branches and threw it away. It was almost like having a dog put down.

The Presbyterian Church in our town has an annual rummage and plant sale. I potted up several dozen jade starts, and several kinds of sediment, some aloe "pepe", a bunch of hens and chicks and a couple of other things. The sale was cancelled this spring, and I don't want to tend all of them for another year, so yesterday when we shopped at the Humane Society thrift store, I noticed that they had a few little pots, so I asked if they would take mine. The manager suggested bringing in 20 at a time. I hope they sell well. The little 3 inch pots they had were priced at $3.50 each! Made my day to find a good place to donate them. My current service dog was a rescue from the local HS shelter. Happy ending.

Looking around my yard, I see that my work will be cut out for me in late summer/fall. Several colors of Iris, daylillies, wild rose, herbs, tulips, daffodils, garden mums, yucca, and maybe a couple of peonies are all due to be lifted and divided and/or be re-homed. I'll be wishing I had a young neighbor to help me.

Moles, voles, gophers and Townsend ground squirrels have been tunnelling in various places, so the annual battle has begun. Sadie has brought me several squirrels, and yesterday a gopher in the past few weeks. I guess she knows that hunting is one of the services she provides.

Living in the country calls for a different style of landscaping than what I did on previous city lots. I find it to be more relaxed and informal. Anytime I have something to plant, there are always places to tuck in one more thing. If it doesn't fit anywhere, I can just start a new location somewhere. There's always room for one more (or a dozen more).

I could write more, but I need to be out tending to what I've written about.

Happy Gardening, everyone.

Jim

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